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NEW YORK (AP) - Oil prices settled Monday at their highest level so far this year on tensions between Iran and the West following Tehran's detention of British naval personnel. Gasoline futures prices climbed above $2 a gallon to their highest level since last September as a new driving season nears.
Vienna's PVM Oil Associates cited the "deteriorating relationship between Iran and the West and last week's further falls in U.S. commercial oil inventories" as driving crude prices upward. Iran is the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries' second largest producer.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair on Sunday called the Iranian seizure of the 15 sailors and marines "unjustified and wrong," saying that London saw their situation as "very serious." Iran suggested that the group may be tried for illegally entering Iranian waters.
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