A passenger plane of Lufthansa flies over a gas station in Berlin, Germany, Oct. 15, 2004. Lufthansa announced plans earlier this week to increase fuel surcharges as a result of the continuing surge of oil prices. (Xinhua Photo/Wu Xiaoling)

     BEIJING, Oct. 16 (Xinhuanet) -- Crude oil futures continued to climb Friday, reaching a record high as decline in the US inventory of heating oil and tight supplies still overshadowed the energy markets.

    On the New York Mercantile Exchange, crude oil futures for November delivery rose 17 cents to settle at a record high of 54.93 US dollars a barrel. However, on London's International Petroleum Exchange the November Brent crude-oil futures contract fell 16 cents to close at 49.93 dollars per barrel.

    Traders remained worried about the decline in the US inventory of heating oil. A government report showed Thursday that the stockpiles of heating oil had declined to 50 million barrels, or 10 percent below year-ago levels. However, the winter was approaching and there were not signs that the oil production in the Gulf of Mexico would resume to normal soon.

    The Gulf of Mexico had lost 20 million barrels of oil since Hurricane Ivan hit the crude-rich region early September.

    But US Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said Friday that the impact of the current surge in oil prices, though noticeable, is far less an impact on the economy than the oil shocks of the 1970s.

    Oil prices now were only three-fifths of their all-time peak in February 1981 after accounting for inflation, Greenspan said in remarks to the National Italian American Foundation in Washington.

    So far this year, he said, the rise in oil prices has probably trimmed gross domestic product by about 0.75 percentage point, farless than the shocks of two decades ago did.

    But he warned that the risk of more serious negative consequences would intensify if oil prices were to move "materially higher."

    There are concerns that producers are pumping at near full capacity to meet huge global demand, leaving no more room for any supply interruptions.

    Greenspan believed that existing technology and improvements spurred by the increase in prices should be sufficient to "ensure the needed supplies (of energy) for a very long while."

    Oil would eventually be overtaken by cheaper alternatives well before conventional reserves ran out and the United States would likely start switching to the next major sources of energy in mid-century, when conventional oil reservoirs were expected to start declining, Greenspan predicted.

    Meanwhile, Indonesian President-elect Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono vowed to find a solution to rising oil prices, which he said could hurt the global economy. Enditem