By early afternoon in Europe, benchmark crude for April delivery was up 43 cents at $100.06 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract rose $2.66 to settle at $99.63 on Tuesday.
In London, Brent crude for April delivery was up 5 cents to $115.47 a barrel on the ICE Futures exchange.
Traders are keeping a wary eye on Libya, where fighting between supporters and opponents of Gadhafi has cut deeply into the OPEC nation's oil production.
Amid a lack of credible information, a Libyan oil official said that exports from the rebel-held east were proceeding normally thanks to full storage tanks even as production there had fallen by just over 50 percent.
Some experts were skeptical that more than a trickle of oil could still be flowing out of Libya.
"Libya could quickly resume oil production again as soon as the security situation in the country improves," said a report from Commerzbank in Frankfurt. "That said, attacks on oil infrastructure cannot be ruled out amid the unrest."
Investors are concerned violent protests and political upheaval could break out in the rest of the region since Iran, Iraq, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Oman and Saudi Arabia have more than 60 percent of the world's proven oil reserves.
"The underlying fear is still that the current unrest will spread due east into the Arab Middle East and Persia," Cameron Hanover said.
Oil prices are expected to stay on an upward path in the near term.
"Unfortunately, none of this unrest is going to have a short 'shelf life,' meaning that energy's trading ranges will likely be much higher over the weeks and months ahead," said Edward Meir at MF Global in New York.
An unexpected dip in U.S. oil stockpiles provided further support for prices.
The American Petroleum Institute said late Tuesday that crude inventories fell 1.1 million barrels last week while analysts surveyed by Platts, the energy information arm of McGraw-Hill Cos., had forecast an increase of 1.6 million barrels. Inventories of gasoline fell 4.9 million barrels and distillates fell 1.4 million barrels, the API said.
The Energy Department's Energy Information Administration reports its weekly supply data later Wednesday.
In other Nymex trading in April contracts, heating oil fell 0.08 cent to $3.0227 a gallon, and gasoline gained 1.11 cents to $2.9945 a gallon. Natural gas futures were down 3 cents to $3.845 per 1,000 cubic feet. source www.beaumontenterprise.com... For the latest updates PRESS CTR + D or visit Stock Market news Today
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