Oil prices vaulted to a record US$100 a barrel on Wednesday as violence in Nigeria, tight energy stockpiles and a weaker dollar triggered a surge of speculative buying, dealers said. Oil's climb to the psychologically key tripledigit price helped send stocks tumbling on Wall Street and further darkened an already gloomy economic outlook in the United States, which has been battered by a housing crisis and credit crunch. US crude CLc1 traded once at US$100 a barrel, up US$4.02, before easing back to settle US$3.64 higher at US$99.62. It remains below the inflationadjusted high of US$101.70 hit in April 1980, a year after the Iranian revolution. London
Brent crude LCOc1 rose US$3.99 to US$97.84. (BT)