•Front-month NYMEX light sweet crude and ICE Brent futures contract set fresh records Tuesday, continuing their recent upwards trend and piercing another set of psychologically important levels as the dollar fell and short-term news remained bullish, market sources said.

•The May NYMEX crude contract, due to expire at the end of trading Tuesday, rallied to $118.05/barrel, while June ICE Brent reached a new record high of $115.03/b at 0906 GMT.

•"The US dollar weakened again...in addition, supply worries in Nigeria and the strike at Grangemouth refinery are still giving the market some support," a London-based broker said. The euro/dollar rate climbed to 1.5975 in earlier trading, just short of the 1.5988 record.

•"The short-term news is very bullish, market volumes remain low and I believe that the market volatility has kept some people away...The market is likely to go like that for a bit longer, however at some point the bubble has to burst and this could be dangerous, especially with people holding unhedged physical positions," the broker added.

Updated: April 22, 2008