Oil Prices Hit Record High

Climb Past $75 A Barrel, May Send Pump Prices To $3 Per Gallon Nationwide

(CBS/AP)  North Korea defied stern warnings from the United States and Japan to launch six missiles early Wednesday, including a long-range Taepodong-2, which failed shortly after takeoff. Later Wednesday, the communist nation fired a seventh missile.

While the news was unlikely to have any impact on supply, it adds to uncertainties about the global political situation, analysts and traders said. Markets already have been jittery about Iran's nuclear program and violence in Nigeria and the Middle East.

Iran postponed by a day its talks with the European Union on a package of incentives designed to defuse the standoff over Tehran's atomic program, the EU said Wednesday.

In London, Brent crude futures rose 55 cents to $73.06 a barrel on the ICE Futures exchange.

"This market has got some fireworks," said BNP Paribas Commodity Futures broker Thomas Bentz.

"The market just always seems to react to any political unrest," Bentz said.

Bentz said reduced rates Monday at a gasoline producing unit of an Exxon Mobil Corp. refinery were not a big deal for actual supply, but nevertheless had a psychological impact on the market.

"The bulls just seem to have plenty of fodder to sustain ever higher prices," Fimat USA oil analyst John Kilduff said. Kilduff said a severe disruption in oil supplies from a hurricane or some other event could send oil racing toward $90 a barrel.

On the other hand, if the diplomatic standoff between Iran and the West were to be resolved, that could take oil prices sharply lower.

The Department of Energy is scheduled to release its weekly petroleum report Thursday, a day later than usual due to the Independence Day holiday.

With demand about 1 percent above year ago levels for the past month, analysts expect to see commercial inventories of gasoline decline for the second straight week.