DETROIT: Nissan Motor has announced that two senior executives, its North American sales chief and the executive charged with leading its high-end Infiniti brand, have resigned in the latest in a string of departures from the Japanese automakers North American unit.

Nissan said Wednesday that Mark McNabb, senior vice president for sales and marketing, would be replaced after less than nine months on the job by Brian Carolin, senior vice president of sales and marketing at Nissans European arm.

The changes will take effect April 1, said the unit, which is based in Nashville, Tennessee.

Nissan did not immediately announce a replacement for McNabb in his role as global head of its Infiniti brand.

Nissan has seen executives at all levels depart since it moved its U.S. headquarters to Nashville from California in 2006. Executives who have left in the past few months include the former Nissan division manager and the companys vice president for marketing.

A Nissan spokesman, Fred Standish, said McNabb was leaving the company for personal reasons.

Nissan also said that Tsuyoshi Yamaguchi, who heads Nissans technical center in Farmington Hills, Michigan, would be promoted to a senior position at the automakers headquarters in Tokyo. He will be succeeded by Motohiro Matsumura, an executive at Nissans Tokyo technical center.

Carolin joined Nissan in 1984 in Britain and has been charged with marketing the Infiniti brand across Europe this year. The automaker said it would split his current position as senior vice president of sales and marketing into two roles for successors.

Simon Thomas, vice president of European sales, will be promoted to sales chief for Western Europe. Toru Saito, managing director for the region comprising Russia, Ukraine and Kazakhstan, will head Eastern European sales operations.

Nissan, 44 percent owned by Renault of France, posted a 4.5 percent gain in U.S. light vehicle sales in 2007, giving it a U.S. market share of almost 7 percent.

Nissans sales gains came in a year when all three Detroit-based automakers suffered weaker sales, hit by a slumping housing market, credit market strains and higher gasoline prices.

But in the first two months of this year, Nissan sold 3 percent fewer vehicles in the United States than in the same period a year earlier. Analysts expect industrywide U.S. auto sales to fall for the third consecutive year in 2008.

NEW YORK: Fueled by a continuing weak dollar, crude oil futures surged above $107 Monday, a new inflation-adjusted record and their fifth new high in the last six sessions.

Light, sweet crude for April delivery rose $2.30 to $107.45 a barrel at midday on the New York Mercantile Exchange after earlier setting a new trading record of $107.

The dollar, which has driven the rally from $87 in January, remains a force in the market, though the U.S. currency firmed a bit Monday from lows hit at the end of last week.

Gasoline prices, meanwhile, were poised to set a new record at the pump, having surged to within half a cent of their record high of $3.227 a gallon, or 85 cents a liter.

The average price of a gallon of U.S. gas rose 0.7 cent overnight to $3.222 a gallon, 69 cents higher than one year ago, according to AAA and the Oil Price Information Service. Last May, prices peaked at $3.227 as surging demand and a string of refinery outages raised concerns about supplies.

That record will probably be left behind soon as gas prices accelerate toward levels that could approach $4 a gallon, though most analysts believe prices will peak below that psychologically significant mark. In its last forecast, released last month, the Energy Department said prices would probably peak around $3.40 a gallon this spring; a new forecast is due Tuesday.

There was little in oils price uncertainty to convince analysts that the huge run-up in oil prices had run its course.

“Weve got a Fed meeting on the 18th that could see a sizeable rate cut,” said Brad Samples, an analyst with Summit Energy Services, in Louisville, Kentucky. “So, its not over.”

Many analysts believe speculative investing attracted by the weak dollar is the primary reason why oil has risen so far so fast in recent months. Crude futures offer a hedge against a falling dollar, and oil futures bought and sold in dollars are more attractive to foreign investors when the dollar is falling.

Indeed, while the dollar fluctuated against the euro on Monday, many investors believe the dollar is likely to keep falling as the Fed continues to cut rates. Many analysts believe the rise in crude prices is not supported by the markets underlying fundamentals, noting that supplies are generally rising while demand is falling.

Investors “are pushing food and fuel prices to ruinously high levels,” said Peter Beutel, president of the energy risk management firm Cameron Hanover, in a research note.

Investors shrugged off a weekend cooling of tensions in South America, where Venezuela said Sunday that it was restoring full diplomatic ties with Colombia after they were broken off following a cross-border Colombian attack on a leftist rebel camp in Ecuador.

Last week, rebels shut down a Colombian oil pipeline in retaliation for the Colombian raid into Ecuador. Venezuela threatened to slash trade and nationalize Colombian-owned businesses, and Venezuela and Ecuador briefly sent troops to their borders with Colombia.

The potential for conflict involving Venezuela, an OPEC member and major U.S. oil supplier, helped push oil higher last week.

“The Venezuelan production was at risk there,” Samples said.

Other energy futures were mixed Monday. April heating oil futures rose 2.05 cents to $2.9675 a gallon while April gasoline futures rose 0.37 cent to $2.698 a gallon.

April natural gas futures slid 2.6 cents to $9.743 per 1,000 cubic feet.

In London, Brent crude futures rose 95 cents to $103.33 a barrel on the ICE Futures exchange.

TOKYO: The president of Toyota Motor acknowledged Thursday its rapid global growth was partly behind an increase in quality problems in recent years.

The company has improved quality controls and is sticking to its sales targets, including those in North America, despite worries about a credit crunch and a slowdown in the auto market, said the president, Katsuaki Watanabe.

Speaking at the Japan National Press Club, Watanabe said the reasons behind the defects were varied, involving development, design, production, suppliers and maintenance.

But Watanabe said that at least some of the problems, including time pressures and shortage of experts, stemmed from the companys huge growth in recent years. “That is not zero,” he said, referring to quality problems rooted in Toyotas expansion.

Watanabe has generally been frank about acknowledging challenges facing the company as it enters markets and builds plants. Still, his comments highlight a sense of a crisis at Toyota, which is trying to maintain its sterling reputation for quality as it seeks to expand globally, especially in emerging markets like Brazil, China and Russia.

“The fact that Toyota is growing globally suddenly shouldnt be used as an excuse,” Watanabe said.

Last year, Toyota overtook General Motors as the worlds No. 1 automaker in global vehicle production, although GM still retains the top spot in global vehicle sales.

Toyota made a record 9,497,754 vehicles worldwide in 2007, up 5.3 percent from the previous year, compared with 9.284 million for GM. But Toyota sold fewer vehicles at 9.366 million, compared with 9,369,524 for General Motors. GM has been the worlds top seller for 77 years.

Watanabe said he had ordered a six-month delay in some products to tackle quality controls after the problems surfaced. He did not give details.

Toyota has gone over, one by one, each problem, tracking root causes, analyzing and coming up with ways to prevent a recurrence, Watanabe said. He even referred to “big company disease” caused by arrogance among its ranks.

Since 2006, when the alarming rise in recalls began to surface, Watanabe has apologized repeatedly at news conferences in Japan.

He also said he was aware of the concerns about falling U.S. auto sales amid a slowdown in the American economy. This year is expected to be the slowest in a decade for the U.S. auto industry. But automakers are still predicting that sales will pick up in the second half thanks to the U.S. governments economic stimulus package and pent-up demand.

Watanabe brushed off the worries. Overall American auto sales this year are likely to remain about the same as last year, and Toyota is expecting its regional sales to rise this year, he said. Toyota is expecting U.S. sales to climb 1 percent from 2007 to 2.64 million vehicles in 2008.

“I feel U.S. economic fundamentals are strong,” Watanabe said.