Oil prices reached another new high on Friday as crude hit $117 US a barrel.

The price of oil for May touched its new peak in electronic after-hours trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. During the regular trading, oil closed at $116.69 US, which was up $1.83 from Thursday's close.

Analysts put the latest record price down to instability in Nigeria. A rebel group said Friday it had sabotaged a pipeline run by a Royal Dutch Shell PLC joint venture. A Shell spokeswoman confirmed that the pipeline appeared to have been damaged by explosive and was leaking.

The rebel group — the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta — has been attacking oil installations since early 2006, and vowed to stage more attacks.

The attacks on the oil facilities of Nigeria have cut the OPEC member's output by almost one-quarter.