Crude oil reaches $103.05 record high on dollar drop, UK gas terminal fire

Crude oil climbed to a record for a fourth day after the dollar dropped to an all-time low against the euro, extending a three-day rout and prompting investors to buy commodities as an inflation hedge. Increased investor demand for oil coincided with reports of lower Nigerian production, a disruption to supply from Iraq and a fire at a U.K. gas terminal.

Crude oil for April delivery rose 46 cents to $103.05 a barrel in after-hours electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange, the highest since trading began in 1983. The dollar traded at $1.5182 per euro at 9:29 a.m. in Singapore, after touching $1.5229 yesterday, the weakest since the euro began trading at about $1.17 in January 1999.

U.K. natural gas prices are likely to rise after an explosion and fire yesterday damaged Royal Dutch Shell Plc's Bacton terminal in England, which handles supplies flowing from the North Sea into Europe's biggest gas-consuming country. Natural gas for April delivery yesterday rose 38.3 cents to $9.443 per million British thermal units in New York. Futures touched $9.498, the highest since Feb. 1, 2006.

- Oil and gold seem locked in a neck-to-neck race to outdo each other at breaking records. An interesting note is that the news media can no longer say that oil is "still below" the $102.53 "inflation-adjusted high" back in 1980, because it is now way above that.

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