By DPA
Vienna : The price of crude oil produced by the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) increased by almost three dollars a barrel at the beginning of the week, OPEC said Tuesday.
The price of one barrel (159 litres) of crude produced by cartel members stood at $89.18 Monday, up $2.94 from Friday, the Vienna-based OPEC Secretariat said.
The main reason for the unusually sharp spike was the threat by Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez to stop oil sales to the US, OPEC analysts said.
Chavez is engaged in a legal battle with US oil company ExxonMobil over a nationalised project.