Oil Ends Week Over $105 a Barrel

Oil slipped slightly from this week’s highest closing price in two-and-a-half years but finished the week near that level over $105 a barrel, Bloomberg reported.

Light sweet crude futures fell 20 cents to finish the trading week on the New York Mercantile Exchange at $105.40 a barrel, Bloomberg said.

Wednesday’s $105.75 closing price was the highest since September 2008, when prices were receding from their record levels of that summer.

Oil prices have jumped 25% since protests began in mid February in Libya, the seventh largest oil-producing member of OPEC, Bloomberg reported.

The price has gone up more than $4 since last weekend’s military action against that country’s government by a coalition of Western nations including the United States.

Diesel prices took their first decline in almost four months this week, slipping 0.1 cent to $3.907 a gallon.

The Department of Energy will release its next weekly survey of fuel prices Monday afternoon in Washington.