Riots Bahrain Oil Prices Lift

Crude oil prices rose on Wednesday as fears about Arab unrest over concerns about the threat of nuclear disaster in Japan.

New York's main contract, light sweet crude for April delivery rose 80 cents to close at 97.98 dollars per barrel. WTI futures benchmark contract fell 4.01 dollars on Tuesday because of the threat of nuclear catastrophe that triggered Japan earthquake measuring 9.0 Richter scale on Friday.

In London, Brent North Sea crude oil for April delivery surged 2.10 dollars to settle at 110.62 dollars per barrel. Yesterday Brent slumped 5.15 dollars. "There are two main factors in Japan and the continuing unrest in the Middle East," said Matt Smith at Summit Energy. The oil market has the support of new unrest in the Middle East, as troops loyal to the Libyan leader Kadhafi Moamer advanced on rebel-held positions and in Bahrain seen clashes in the middle of a new declaration of emergency to quell protests. Popular uprising in the Middle East and North Africa, which overthrew the leader of Tunisia and Egypt, have pushed oil prices higher as fears over supply disruptions.

Bahraini authorities launched a crackdown against opposition demonstrators in Manama on Wednesday, killing five people, a day after the Saudi-led troops move into Bahrain to support the government's Sunni minority.

Unrest in Bahrain was "really scary" market, Smith said, noting concerns that the turmoil could spread to neighboring Saudi Arabia, OPEC's largest oil producer.

But the upward swing in oil prices tempered by the threat of nuclear disaster in Japan, the world's third largest economy - and also the third largest crude oil consumer world.

Adu speed to prevent the nuclear crisis, Japanese officials have been throwing water at a Fukushima nuclear power plant Unit 1, which has been hit by a series of explosions after Friday earthquake and tsunami damage the reactor coolant system.

In a statement Wednesday that shook the markets, EU energy chief, Guenther Oettinger, warned that "the location effectively out of control." "In the next hour it could be a catastrophic event which could be further to pose a threat to the lives of people on the island," he told the European Parliament committee in Brussels.

"Escalation riots in Bahrain, together with economic and social consequences in Japan, underscoring our view that volatility will remain high and the market will continue to oscillate between these two moved up and down trend in oil prices," said bank analyst at JPMorgan Chase in a client note .

The market also weighed the latest weekly report from the reserves of U.S. Department of Energy that showed U.S. crude oil stocks rose 1.7 million barrels last week, while gasoline inventories dropped 4.2 million barrels.

Analysts had expected a smaller rise in crude oil fell 1.1 million barrels and only 1.8 million barrels for gasoline in the United States, the world's largest oil consumer.