Crude oil prices spiked above $92 a barrel today on tensions in the Middle East and renewed concerns about supply.

America announced new sanctions against Iran yesterday, targeting the elite Revolutionary Guards, which Washington accuses of backing Shiite militants in Iraq. A confrontation between the world’s largest oil consumer and its fourth largest oil producer could upend markets.

Parallel to fears of a broader conflict in the Middle East were new oil supply concerns.

Light, sweet crude for December delivery rose $1.20 to $91.66 a barrel in electronic trade on the New York Mercantile Exchange by afternoon in Europe. It briefly rose to a new trading record of $92.22 during Asian trading.

With the recent gains, the price of oil is closing in on the inflation-adjusted highs hit in early 1980. Depending on the adjustment, a $38 barrel of oil in 1980 would be worth $96 to $101 or more today.

The Nymex crude contract jumped $3.36 yesterday to settle at $90.46 a barrel — closing above $90 a barrel for the first time.

“With oil taking the $90 hurdle, a price of $100 seems more and more likely, if only for speculative reasons,” a Commerzbank commodity analyst, Eugen Weinberg, told Dow Jones Newswires.

December Brent crude rose 97 cents to $88.45 a barrel on the ICE futures exchange in London, down from an earlier high of $89.30.

“The market is really quite worried about supply,” a commodity markets fund manager at ASTMAX Futures Co. in Tokyo, Tetsu Emori, said. “Oil is quite imbalanced. It is quite tight.”

The combination of supply worries and geopolitical concerns has pushed crude oil prices up more than 7% since Tuesday.

Prices first jumped sharply Wednesday after the Energy Information Administration reported that American oil inventories fell 5.3 million barrels last week when analysts had expected them to grow 300,000 barrels.

That report reversed a three-day downward price trend, and put energy traders back in a bullish mood, analysts said.