Crude oil prices rose to a record of 60 dollars a barrel Thursday as brokers worried that the market would not be well supplied.On the New York Mercantile Exchange, light, sweet crude oil futures for August delivery rose 1.33 dollars to end at 59.42 dollars a barrel. Intraday prices briefly hit 60 dollars a barrel,the highest in more than two decades. Meanwhile, on London's International Petroleum Exchange, the August Brent crude-oil futures contract climbed 1.38 dollars to settle at 57.96 dollars per barrel.

The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries was pumping almost as much oil as it cold to help boost inventories ahead of peak demand later this year. However, this strategy left little margin for additional output if supplies were disrupted. Oil prices were further pushed higher by a decline in US gasoline production. The Department of Energy said yesterday that gasoline output fell by 255,000 barrels a day to 8.7 million last week.

"Markets will still keep a bullish bias at least until the July 4 weekend and possibly into the first part of July," said a assets manager in Chicago. "Any little problem out there will cause the price pop up."

In New York, oil futures were 58 percent expensive than a year ago.