Oil climbs past $118 for first time

The price of New York crude rocketed to a record high point of 118.05 dollars per barrel on Tuesday, lifted by unrest in Nigeria, weakness of the dollar and OPEC's reluctance to raise short-term output, traders said.
Later on Tuesday, New York's main oil futures contract, light sweet crude for delivery in May, stood at 117.77 dollars, up 29 cents from the price on Monday. The contract expires at the close.
London's Brent North Sea crude for June hit a historic pinnacle at 115.03 dollars a barrel. It later stood at 114.67 dollars, up 24 cents.
"For the moment, there does not seem to be anything stopping the price juggernaut we are seeing in energy," said MF Global analyst Ed Meir.
The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) plans to lift production capacity by five million barrels per day (bpd) by 2012, the cartel's secretary general Abdalla Salem El-Badri said on Tuesday.
Speaking to reporters on the sidelines of the International Energy Forum in Rome, El-Badri also said that the cartel aimed to boost production capacity by nine million bpd by 2020.