NEW YORK — It's only July, but it might be time to start loading up on blankets and sweaters. Oil spiked to a new trading record as hostilities rise between the West and Iran — raising the likelihood that this winter's heating bills will be the priciest yet.

Crude oil's brief jump past $147 a barrel yesterday arrived not only as the United States and Israel view Iran as a growing threat, but also as the U.S. dollar fell and worries erupted over possible supply disruptions in two other major oil-producing nations: Nigeria and Brazil.

Those factors contributed to new all-time trading highs in crude, gasoline and heating oil. It looks like $4-a-gallon gasoline might be here to stay, and that heating oil costs might cause further problems for consumers as the weather gets colder. Futures prices for natural gas turned lower yesterday, but are still about twice as high as a year ago.

Heating oil is used mostly in the Northeast United States; homes in most other parts of the country use natural gas. It's possible for people to cut back on heating as they do on driving, but it's not easy to slash the bill significantly.

Political unrest in oil-producing regions — along with production cutbacks by refineries and fairly resilient demand for diesel fuel — have been keeping energy costs high.

Iran, which has long been under U.N. scrutiny for its uranium enrichment program, has been testing missiles this week, including a new missile capable of reaching Israel. Then yesterday, there were rumors of Israeli military exercises taking place in Iraqi air space.

"The war of words is quite heated," said Michael Lynch, president of Strategic Energy & Economic Research Inc. in Winchester, Mass. "And it raises the possibility of some serious problems in the area — either the cutoff of Iranian exports, or Iranian strikes on tankers in the Strait of Hormuz," through which about 40 percent of the world's tanker traffic passes.