Crude-oil futures rose yesterday after a new supply disruption cropped up in Nigeria.

Light, sweet crude for August delivery added $1.54, or 2.2 per cent, to $70.70 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Brent crude on the ICE futures exchange rose $1.46, or 2.1 per cent, to $70.38 a barrel.

Royal Dutch Shell Plc has shut down some production after an attack on two oil-well clusters in Nigeria, a person close to the company told Dow Jones Newswires.

The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta militant group earlier said it blew up Shell's Forcados off-shore platform in Delta state and refused a presidential amnesty offer.

An estimated one million barrels a day of crude output is down in Nigeria due in part to unrest in the country.

Yet ample global oil inventories and weakening demand in recent weeks have helped stabilise the market near $70 a barrel.

"If it weren't a bearish situation, we would have spiked more," said Tim Jennings, president at brokerage Vantage Trading in New York. There's now enough oil in storage to cover about 62 days of daily consumption.

Algeria's Oil Minister Chakib Khelil said yesterday that the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries wants to see that cushion shrink to 52 days. "The market is not being driven by demand but by speculation," Mr. Khelil said.

The recession has caused global demand to decline for two years straight. Future demand growth could be more tepid than previously thought, as the International Energy Agency on Monday made a 3.7 per cent downward revision to its medium-term oil demand growth forecast.

The agency, an energy watchdog for major consuming countries, said it expects global oil demand by 2013 to average 87.90 million barrels a day, down 3.35 million barrels a day compared with its December forecast.

Front-month July reformulated gasoline blendstock, or RBOB, traded 5.48 cents, or 2.9 per cent, higher at $1.9289 a gallon. July heating oil climbed 4.16 cents, or 2.4 per cent, to $1.7719 a gallon.