''The market is so jittery right now," said BNP Paribas Commodity Futures broker Tom Bentz, one of several market participants who said prices may take yet another run at last month's record above $75 a barrel.
Light, sweet crude for June delivery rose $1.44 to settle at $72.13 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, where gasoline futures rose 12.28 cents to settle at $2.1694 a gallon.
With global demand strong and the supply cushion thin, traders also remain worried about output losses of 500,000 barrels per day in Nigeria, where Royal Dutch Shell PLC has shut production out of safety concerns, and more than 300,000 barrels per day from the Gulf of Mexico, which was pummeled by hurricanes last summer.
Police in Port Harcourt, Nigeria, said yesterday a motorcyclist shot to death a man working for the Houston-based drilling services company Baker Hughes Inc. The victim was riding in a car to his office when he was shot, police said.
''The Nigerian rebels have just raised the stakes a little bit, assuming that this killing is credited to the militants," said Alaron Trading Corp. analyst Phil Flynn.
On Tuesday, a new militant movement whose attacks on oil installations have cut more than 20 percent of Nigeria's of 2.5 million daily barrel production said it would target oil workers with fresh attacks.
The market also reacted to Valero Energy Corp. saying a 50,000-barrel-per-day unit at a refinery in Texas City, Texas, would be undergoing repairs for several days, reducing gasoline output by 15,000 barrels per day.
In its weekly petroleum report, the Energy Department said crude oil inventories rose last week by 300,000 barrels to 347 million barrels, or roughly 5 percent above year ago levels. Gasoline inventories climbed by 2.4 million barrels to 205.1 million barrels, or almost 4 percent below last year.
