The price of oil continued its rise on Thursday, April 20, with light, sweet crude reaching a new intraday high of $72.49 in midday trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

Tension regarding the situation in Iran is being blamed for the most recent surge. The Washington Post reported that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Thursday that crude oil prices had not yet reached their “real value.”

In its weekly Energy Outlook, the U.S. Energy Information Administration reported that crude oil supplies fell by 800,000 barrels for the week ending April 15 to 345.2 million barrels. The drop in the supplies also has contributed to the rise in prices.

The Post reported that some analysts are speculating that the price could even go as high as $80 per barrel.