NEW YORK (CNN/Money) -
Oil prices fell back below $48 a barrel Friday after earlier soaring above $49, but continuing violence in Iraq and solid worldwide demand kept investors talking about another possible rise next week.
Just before 2:30 p.m. ET, U.S. light crude for September delivery fell 90 cents to $47.80, down from an all-time trading high of $49.40 hit earlier in the day. Traders cited profit-taking, according to Reuters news agency.
London Brent lost 68 cents to $43.65 after reaching a record $45.14 earlier Friday.
Prices had started to pull back after Iraqi officials said police seized control of the Imam Ali Mosque in Najaf after the fighters loyal to Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr withdrew.
Iraqi police later told CNN that they did not have control of the Imam Ali Mosque.
"Al-Sadr and his supporters have indicated a willingness to directly target oil production and transport, thus potentially endangering what oil there is coming out of the southern port," the brokerage Refco said in a note to clients, according to Reuters.
Prices rose on earlier in the session on fears of further attacks on Iraqi oil infrastructure by insurgents who set fire Thursday to the headquarters of the state company that operates Iraq's southern oil fields, South Oil Co. in the port city of Basra.
Although the South Oil Co. incident did not appear to disrupt supplies, Iraq's southern pipeline has been shut since a sabotage attack Aug. 9, curbing export flows to about a million barrels daily, half normal rates.
Resources stretched thin
Rising world oil demand has left little slack in the system to cope with outages in Iraq where Shiite militia have lived up to threats they will target oil infrastructure if U.S. forces do not leave the holy city of Najaf.
Also underpinning prices has been the uncertainty around Russian exporter Yukos and continuing strong demand in India and China.
Despite government efforts to slow an economic boom, Chinese crude imports for July jumped 41 percent with imports so far this year up 40 percent, Reuters reported, quoting Chinese government statistics.
India's top refiner, state-run Indian Oil Corp. Ltd., said it expected the country's crude oil imports to rise 11 percent in the current year as demand increases 4 percent.
--from staff and wire reports
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