Oil Hits New 30-Month High Near $109 a Barrel

Oil rose 49 cents Wednesday to a new 30-month high, closing the trading day at $108.83 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, Bloomberg reported.

The gain came amid concerns over the ongoing NATO air campaign and civil war in Libya, an OPEC oil producer, and followed a Department of Energy report that showed crude inventories rose almost 2 million barrels last week.

DOE said gasoline inventories dropped by 350,000 last week, less than the 1.9 million-barrel decline forecast by economists, Bloomberg said.

Distillate stockpiles, which include diesel, rose 200,000 barrels for the week ended Saturday, DOE said in its weekly report.

Wednesday’s closing price was the highest since oil had topped $120 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange on Sept. 22, 2008, according to Bloomberg figures.

The all-time closing Nymex record was $145.29 a barrel, set on July 3, 2008.