Oil rose above $111 a barrel in New York and surpassed $124 a barrel in London for the first time since 2008 as a fire burned at Libya’s Sarir field, bolstering concern that unrest in the region will further reduce supply. Futures are headed for a third weekly gain as NATO said forces loyal to Muammar Qaddafi caused a fire at Sarir, Al Arabiya television reported yesterday. The Libyan conflict is in a stalemate, according to Army General Carter Ham, the U.S. commander for Africa. Output from Africa’s third-largest producer may remain limited to about 29 percent of pre-conflict levels even after fighting ends, Nomura Holdings Inc. said. “It’s pretty clear that this is going to be a long-running game,” said Andrey Kryuchenkov, an analyst at VTB Capital in London. “Supplies from Libya are unlikely to emerge at any point soon.” Crude for May delivery rose as much as $1.60, or 1.5 percent, to $111.90 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange, the highest since Sept. 22, 2008. The contract was at $111.83 at 11:55 a.m. London time. Prices are up 3.6 percent this week and 30 percent in the past year. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization stepped up its air campaign over Libya, deploying 164 missions on April 6, including 73 “strike sorties” to engage possible ground targets, the military alliance said in a web statement. Brent oil for May settlement climbed as much as $2.17, or 1.8 percent, to $124.70 a barrel on the London-based ICE Futures Europe exchange, the highest since Aug. 4, 2008. Uprisings Brent was $12.87 a barrel more expensive than the benchmark used in New York, West Texas Intermediate. London-traded Brent, traditionally cheaper than WTI, has traded above the New York marker since August because of excess inventories in the U.S. Brent, against which North African crude supplies are priced, has surged 25 percent since the Jan. 14 ouster of Tunisian President Zine Abidine Ben Ali. The Libyan conflict is the bloodiest in a wave of uprisings that has spread to Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Iran, Jordan, Oman, Syria and Yemen. “Key oil support came from Middle East headlines,” Mark Pervan, head of commodity research at Australia & New Zealand Banking Group Ltd. in Melbourne, said in an e-mailed note. “The Sirte Basin is where two-thirds of Libyan oil production comes from. The oilfield was originally thought to be unlikely at risk of sabotage due to its remote location in the Saharan desert, so the fire significantly weighed on the supply outlook.” OPEC Shipments Libya’s crude output has fallen to between 250,000 barrels and 300,000 barrels a day, all of which goes to domestic refineries, Shokri Ghanem, chairman of state-owned National Oil Corp., said yesterday in a telephone interview from Tripoli. The country supplied 1.39 million barrels a day in February, according to a Bloomberg News survey of producers and analysts. Libya is one of 12 members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, a group that pumps 40 percent of the world’s crude. OPEC will cut oil loadings for a ninth week as Libya’s exports decline, according to tanker-tracker Oil Movements. The group will ship 22.98 million barrels a day in the four weeks to April 23, down from 23.36 million barrels a day in the period ended March 26, the Halifax, England-based consultant said in a report yesterday. Nigeria, Africa’s biggest oil producer and most populous nation, scheduled parliamentary elections for April 9 and a presidential vote for April 16. Elections in 2003 and 2007 were marred by violence, voter intimidation and the stuffing of ballot boxes. To contact the reporter on this story: Ben Sharples in Melbourne at bsharples@bloomberg.net Grant Smith in London at gsmith52@bloomberg.net To contact the editor responsible for this story: Stephen Voss on sev@bloomberg.net

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