Oil prices jumped more than $1 a barrel Friday after a report that a rebel leader in Nigeria had threatened to wage war on foreign oil interests raised concerns about supplies.

Light sweet crude for March delivery on the New York Mercantile Exchange rose $1.09 to $59.55 a barrel in electronic trading by afternoon in Europe. The contract had risen 81 cents on Thursday after dropping almost $2 a day earlier.

April Brent crude futures jumped $1.22 to $60.01 a barrel on London's ICE Futures exchange.

Nymex heating oil rose 3 cents to $1.6583 a gallon while gasoline jumped nearly 5 cents to $1.4590 a gallon. Natural gas advanced nearly 14 cents to $7.271 per 1,000 cubic feet.

A rebel leader, Godswill Tamuno, told the British Broadcasting Corp. that his "Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta" had warned oil companies and their employees to leave the delta before midnight Friday.

The militant group recently attacked two pipelines, which led the market to worry about supplies.

Nigeria, with daily exports of 2.5 million barrels, is Africa's leading oil producer. It is also the fifth-biggest source of U.S. oil imports.

Before the threat made its way to the market, oil prices appeared to be under pressure with PVM Oil Associates in Vienna describing sentiment as "predominantly bearish on overall high global inventory levels and weak demand signals."

Market participants also reacted to comments from the Venezuelan oil minister Thursday saying the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries should cut output at its next meeting due to rising crude inventories.

"Everyone is building inventories - Japan, the U.S., and that is very dangerous," said Oil Minister Rafael Ramirez. "There is an oversupply of 1 million barrels a day."

Ramirez said he plans to talk with other energy ministers within OPEC about cutting output ahead of a meeting in March. The cartel should cut 500,000 to 1 million barrels a day, he said.

OPEC, which pumps more than a third of the world's oil, hasn't cut oil production since 2004, as oil prices have held near record levels.

"For OPEC countries, less than $60 a barrel is not a suitable price - it is quite cheap for them so they want to push the price to around at least $62-63, which may also be suitable for the consumer side," said Tetsu Emori, chief commodities strategist at Mitsui Bussan Futures in Tokyo.

A leap in U.S. crude inventories to their highest level since late June had caused prices to plunge, settling below $58 a barrel Wednesday for the first time in nearly two months.

Associated Press Writer Gillian Wong in Singapore contributed to this report.

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