US cold snap pushes oil price to post-Iraq high

WORLD oil prices rose sharply again on Tuesday, trading at a post-Iraq war peak on worries that a cold snap in the US will further bite into US crude inventories that are already near five-year lows.

Also sustaining oil prices was further weakness of the dollar against other leading currencies, encouraging speculators to push cash into oil.

US crude price was up 57c at $34.35 a barrel, its highest since before the Iraq invasion, sustaining the strength that last year pushed prices to the highest annual average in more than two decades.