NEW YORK (AFP) - - Oil prices jumped above 135 dollars a barrel Wednesday in the wake of a US government report which showed that American crude reserves sank for the fourth week in a row.
New York's main oil futures contract, light sweet crude for July delivery, jumped 5.07 dollars to close at 136.38 dollars per barrel, after earlier spiking as high as 136.80.
The contract had surged to an all-time high of 139.12 dollars last Friday, when it won a record-breaking 10.75 dollars in one day's trade.
In London, Brent North Sea crude for July delivery rallied 4.00 dollars to settle at 135.02 dollars, after hitting a historic peak of 138.12 last week.
The latest price runs came after the US government's Energy Information Administration (EIA) announced that American crude stockpiles dived 4.6 million barrels in the week ending June 6.
That was far heavier than market expectations for a drop of 1.5 million barrels and marked the fourth straight weekly fall.
Prices also rallied as more details emerged about a planned June 22 meeting of the world's biggest oil producers and consumers to discuss skyrocketing crude prices.
OPEC Secretary General Abdullah al-Badri said the meeting, to take place in Jeddah in Saudi Arabia, will be at head-of-state level.
"The meeting in Jeddah will be the head of states and they will discuss why we have high energy prices," Badri told AFP on the sidelines of an energy conference in London.
Badri would not be drawn on which heads of state would attend the one-day gathering that was announced by Saudi Arabia on Tuesday.
US energy secretary Samuel Bodman is due to represent Washington at the meeting.
Saudi Arabia's cabinet on Monday had asked Oil Minister Ali al-Nuaimi to convene a meeting of producer and consumer nations, and oil firms, "to discuss the jump in prices, its causes and how to deal with it objectively."
European countries, the European Commission, the International Energy Agency (IEA) -- the energy watchdog for industrialized countries -- and the heads of investment banks Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs would be invited, he added.
Analysts in the Gulf said the call for the meeting was aimed at showing that OPEC states were not responsible for the price surge.
The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, whose members collectively produce about 40 percent of the world's crude, maintains that the oil market is well supplied and that current prices do not reflect the fundamentals of supply and demand.
Saudi Arabia, a close Western ally, has come under sustained US pressure to boost output.
Ahead of the Jeddah meeting, finance ministers from the Group of Eight (G8) rich nations will gather in Japan this weekend to discuss ways to limit the economic damage of soaring oil prices.
Oil prices have surged since breaking through the 100-dollar level at the start of the year, and some bullish analysts say prices could hit 150 dollars soon.
