Crude Oil Rises to Two-Year High in N.Y. on Egypt Unrest, Brent
Oil rose to the highest price in more than two years and Brent crude topped $100 a barrel as a seventh day of unrest in Egypt raised concern that supplies may be disrupted.
Oil gained as much as 3.8 percent as opposition groups demanding President Hosni Mubarak’s ouster urged more people onto the streets. Egypt’s Suez Canal, which links the Mediterranean and Red seas, is one of seven “world oil transit chokepoints,” according to the U.S. Energy Department.
“This is all Egypt,” said Stephen Schork, president of the Schork Group Inc. in Villanova, Pennsylvania. “Upwards of 3 to 4 million barrels a day of flow could be disrupted” by a shutdown of the Suez Canal. That would add 6,000 miles (9,700 kilometers), two weeks and assorted costs to tankers’ journeys from the Persian Gulf to Europe and the U.S., he said....MORE
