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According to the New York Times, the head of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries warned on Thursday that oil prices would experience an “unlimited” increase in the event of a military conflict involving Iran because the group’s members would be unable to make up the lost production.

We really cannot replace Iran’s production — it’s not feasible to replace it,” Abdalla Salem el-Badri, the OPEC secretary general, said in an interview.Iran, the second-largest producing country in OPEC after Saudi Arabia, produces about four million barrels of oil a day out of the daily worldwide production of close to 87 million barrels.

The country has been locked in a long dispute with Western nations over its nuclear ambitions.

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Bankruptcy for General Motors (stock ticker: GM) is a real possibility if U.S. auto sales keep falling and the world’s largest automaker is unable to raise about $15 billion in cash to shore up its books, a Merrill Lynch analyst said. John Murphy’s estimate of what GM would need to raise before 2010 to cover continued losses is higher than what other analysts have suggested. Murphy said the recent drastic fall in auto sales likely will continue through 2009.

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Investors of auction-rate securities were misled 

A report by the Association for Financial Professionals says more than 85% of the firms that invested in the auction-rate securities market, which collapsed spectacularly amid the global credit crunch, were led to think or explicitly told that Wall Street banks would support the market in the event of a crisis. The report might add yet more pressure to banks’ already strained relationships with customers caught in the collapse.

Nigerian rebels shake world’s oil markets

An internal rebellion in Nigeria is increasingly adding to worries about the world’s oil supply already focused on flash points such as Iraq and Iran. Armed rebels from the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta have staged bold attacks on Nigeria’s oil infrastructure and kidnapped foreign workers for ransom. The group says it represents an impoverished region’s rage against a negligent and corrupt central government and oil companies that have wrought terrible environmental damage.

Credit Card debt hurting upper-income consumers

Crushing credit-card debt is moving up the income ladder as the US economy slumps. “People of all walks of life have been either guilty of overspending or the victim of some misfortune such as a job loss, an illness or a divorce,” said Greg McBride, a senior financial analyst for Bankrate.com. The average debt rose to $6,900 per consumer in the last year, a 21% increase, according to data by Experian

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