Oil prices eased back from record highs today as traders took profits from a 3 per cent surge after BP shut down Alaska's Prudhoe Bay oilfield.
London Brent crude fell 41 cents at $77.89 a barrel this morning within sight of yesterday's all-time high of $78.64.
BP shut down its 400,000-barrel-per-day Prudhoe Bay oilfield, the biggest in the United States, on Sunday after discovering a corroded pipeline.
The company said it would replace all transit lines on the field, meaning it may be out of service for months.
The unexpected closure may force the United States, in the midst of its peak gasoline demand season, to release its emergency reserves. The US Energy Department said it would consider loaning oil to refiners as it did last year when hurricanes shut a quarter of US crude and fuel output.
But the International Energy Agency (IEA), adviser to the world's industrialised nations, ruled out using its reserves. The IEA co-ordinated the release of global emergency stocks after Hurricane Katrina, only the second such release in its history.
Oil has rallied 25 per cent this year, with a quarter of Nigeria's output shut by militants, saboteurs playing havoc with Iraq's exports and consumers afraid that Iran could halt oil flows to punish opponents of its nuclear programme.
With the Atlantic storm season still a threat for several more months and the duration of the Alaskan outage still in doubt, some analysts saw further gains ahead.
