Oil prices rose to $100 a barrel Wednesday after the forces of Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi attacked rebel strongholds in the eastern half of the country, where many production facilities are located, and a report showed an unexpected drop in U.S. crude and gasoline supplies.
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
