NEW YORK (Reuters) – Brent was flat and U.S. oil pared losses on Monday in the weakest trading volume this year, with traders awaiting further evidence that Libya could resume crippled oil exports after rebels regained key territory.

A weaker U.S. dollar and upbeat U.S. pending home sales pulled oil prices back from earlier losses. Growing speculation that the European Central Bank will raise interest rates as early as next month supported the euro.

Brent crude futures for May delivery traded unchanged at $115.59 a barrel by 1:46 p.m. EDT (1746 GMT), after bouncing off an earlier $114.55 low.

U.S. May crude futures fell for a third day, losing 63 cents to $104.77 a barrel, after dipping as low as $103.60. Brent’s premium to the U.S. benchmark rose 43 cents to $10.85 a barrel, staking out a range after narrowing from its March 1 record above $17.

But with uncertainty running high amid Middle East unrest, a nuclear crisis in quake-hit Japan and unsure economic prospects for a debt-laden euro zone, the most notable aspect of Monday’s oil trade was paltry volume.

With only a half-hour of regular trade to go, total U.S. crude volume was tracking two-thirds below the 30-day average and headed for the lightest volume of the year. Brent trading volume was 55 percent below the 30-day average, according to Reuters data.

“The low trading volumes have continued from last week with a high level of indecision in oil markets,” said John Kilduff of New York hedge fund Again Capital.

BERLIN/NEW YORK, March 24 (Reuters) – German shipping companies are avoiding Tokyo Bay area ports due to radiation fears and Japan could face severe supply chain bottlenecks as vessels get diverted, ship industry officials said on Thursday.

Any logistical setbacks could mean major delays and seaborne congestion at Japan’s terminals including Tokyo, hindering recovery efforts in the wake of the March 11 earthquake.

“The last thing Japan needs right now is for people to abandon them,” said Tim Wickmann, chief executive of MCC Transport a unit of Danish oil and shipping group A.P. Moller-Maersk (MAERSKb.CO: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz).

Among those that have stopped going to Tokyo for the time being are Hapag-Lloyd HPLG.UL — the world’s fifth-biggest container shipper part-owned by tour operator TUI AG (TUIGn.DE: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) – and container ship operator Claus-Peter Offen.

The firms have also stopped calling at the port of Yokohama, which is part of the Tokyo Bay stretch of waterways.

“We don’t want to take any security risks,” a Hapag-Lloyd spokeswoman said on Thursday.

“We’ve seen a slowdown or stoppage in cargoes to Japan since the situation remains quite uncertain,” George Saroglou, chief operating officer at oil tanker company Tsakos Energy Navigation Ltd (TNP.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) told Reuters on the sidelines of the Capital Link Shipping Forum in New York. “This is something that in the short-term is bearish for tanker operators.”

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Oil rose on Tuesday, reversing earlier losses, as unrest in Yemen threatened to further crimp energy exports from the Gulf region and the U.S. dollar weakened to a 15-year low on recovering risk appetite among investors.

French oil giant Total warned customers for liquefied natural gas from its Yemen LNG project that shipments from the exporting country could face cuts, although they remain normal for now, due to escalating political unrest.

Thousands of Yemeni protesters took to the streets on Tuesday, clamoring for President Ali Abdullah Saleh to step down. Several top officials have already abandoned his regime.

Yemen produces around 290,000 barrels a day of oil and exports LNG.

“The situation in the Middle East is still very bullish for oil,” said Phil Flynn, analyst at PFGBEST Research in Chicago. “The unrest spreading (there) on top of the conflict in Libya is still the market focus.”

U.S. crude futures rose 94 cents a barrel to $103.27 as of 10:59 a.m. EDT, while Brent crude rose 30 cents to $115.26.

U.S. crude had earlier fallen as low as $101.43 a barrel, after Japan said it would release oil from its strategic crude stockpiles following the recent earthquake and tsunami, followed by radiation leaks from idled nuclear power reactors.

ABU DHABI (Reuters) – Surging global prices of basic foodstuffs raise the risk that the food crisis of 2007-2008 in developing countries will be repeated, the head of the U.N.’s Food and Agriculture Organization said on Monday.

A jump in oil prices and the fast recent drawdown in global stocks of cereals could herald a supply crisis, FAO Director General Jacques Diouf told Reuters in an interview during a visit to the United Arab Emirates.

“The high prices raise concern and we’ve been quickly drawing down stocks,” he said. “For years we have warned that what is needed is more productivity and investment in agriculture.”

February’s UN Food Price Index rose for the eighth consecutive month, to the highest levels since at least 1990. Every commodity group except sugar rose last month.

Diouf said until recent months, global stocks of cereals were at much healthier levels than the dwindling supplies that set off a crisis in 2007 and 2008.

Last July, inventory levels were a full 100 million tonnes higher than during 2007, but rapid economic growth in developing countries, and a return to growth in highly industrialized economies, has led to new drawdowns.

A number of countries in North Africa and the Middle East have made big grain purchases to head off the sort of unrest, partly fueled by food prices, which has toppled the leaders of Tunisia and Egypt.

ABU DHABI (Reuters) – Surging global prices of basic foodstuffs raise the risk that the food crisis of 2007-2008 in developing countries will be repeated, the head of the U.N.’s Food and Agriculture Organization said on Monday.

A jump in oil prices and the fast recent drawdown in global stocks of cereals could herald a supply crisis, FAO Director General Jacques Diouf told Reuters in an interview during a visit to the United Arab Emirates.

“The high prices raise concern and we’ve been quickly drawing down stocks,” he said. “For years we have warned that what is needed is more productivity and investment in agriculture.”

The most recent U.N. Food Price Index showed prices have risen to the highest levels since at least 1990, when the index began.

Diouf said until recent months, global stocks of cereals were at much healthier levels than the dwindling supplies that set off a crisis in 2007 and 2008.

Last July, inventory levels were a healthy 100 million tonnes higher than during that crisis, but rapid economic growth in developing countries, and a return to growth in highly industrialized economies, has led to new drawdowns.

A number of countries in north Africa and the Middle East have made big grain purchases to head off the sort of unrest, partly fuelled by food prices, which has toppled the leaders of Tunisia and Egypt.

DUBAI (Reuters) – As Libya’s embattled leader pelts rebel strongholds with bombs near the country’s coastal oil export hubs, the risk of long-term damage to the OPEC country’s oil industry is rising.

Libya’s battle lines are shifting daily, with rebels in tenuous control of the east, but the fighting is increasingly taking place near oil industry infrastructure on the coast.

Since unrest began weeks ago in the North African country, which typically pumps around 1.6 million barrels a day (bpd), around 750,000 bpd has been shut in as workers flee.

The disruptions helped push Brent crude prices to 30-month highs this week near $118 a barrel. But so far, the conflict has spared Libya’s oil infrastructure, including its key export terminals, pipelines and well equipment, worth billions.

As the stand-off devolves into what looks increasingly like a civil war, oil experts and analysts are seeing an increasing risk of long-lasting damage to Libya’s largely foreign-run oil sector, which could keep oil prices high for a long time.

The stakes are clear. Libya holds Africa’s largest oil reserves, and crude shipments account for 95 percent of its export revenues. Neither Gaddafi nor rebels want to see the spoils fall into enemy hands. European refiners, especially in Italy, rely heavily on Libya’s prized light crude.

But both the Gaddafi regime and rebels have said publicly they will not seek to destroy oil infrastructure.

CHICAGO/NEW YORK (Reuters) – Oil at $100 a barrel would dent U.S. economic growth, while the world’s top economy would probably slide back into recession if Middle Eastern unrest pushed prices up to $150 for a sustained period, the manager of Pimco’s largest commodity fund said on Thursday.

Mihir Worah, who manages the $25.7 billion Pacific Investment Management Co’s Commodity Real Return Fund, said U.S. oil futures could remain in the $90 to $100 a barrel range if the unrest doesn’t move beyond Libya to bigger oil exporters like Saudi Arabia or Iran.

U.S. crude oil surged to a 2-1/2 year high of $103.41 a barrel on Thursday after Libya saw its 1.6 million barrel per day crude output plunge as forces loyal to Muammar Gaddafi launched a fierce counter-attack on rebels.

“If the situation is contained to Libya and production is down there, then I think we will stay at the $90 to $100 level,” Worah said in a phone interview.

“But even with oil at $100, we’ll start to see U.S. growth slow down and see an impact on gasoline demand.”

Oil at $100 this year would likely shave 1/2 percentage point from U.S. GDP growth, Worah said. That has led the Newport, California-based Pimco to revise U.S. growth expectations from pre-crisis expectations to a forecast of 2.5 to 3 percent growth.

For now, Pimco does not expect uprisings that have swept across North Africa since January to extend to OPEC’s biggest producer.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Regardless of what comes next in Libya’s lethal political standoff, the OPEC country’s oil sector is nearly certain to suffer, bringing long-lasting supply disruptions or even permanent damage.

None of several potential outcomes is benign for Libya’s oil industry — the lifeblood of its economy — or for oil prices. The scenarios run the gamut from all-out civil war and attacks on energy infrastructure to low-level neglect and reservoir damage, as foreign expertise flees the country.

Over decades, from Iran, to Iraq and Venezuela, periods of political chaos in OPEC countries have usually carved lasting scars on the oil sector, and few expect Libya to be any different.

“A period of chaos will probably interrupt Libya’s refining and oil operations,” said Amy Jaffe, an energy studies fellow and Middle East expert at Rice University in Houston. “The military is abandoning Gaddafi, so it’s unclear who is left to protect oil installations. Lots of foreigners are being evacuated, so who will remain in place capable of operating Libya’s oil industry? Will workers even show up?”

As Africa’s No. 3 producer and the site of the continent’s largest proved reserves, estimated at 44 billion barrels, Libyan oil usually accounts for 2 percent of world output.

The country, whose oil accounts for a fourth of Italy’s demand, is the first major oil exporter to be thrust into acute turmoil since protests began sweeping through the Middle East in January, unseating presidents in Tunisia and Egypt so far.

An estimated 300,000 to 400,000 barrels per day (bpd) of Libya’s 1.6 million bpd of production has been halted, as companies evacuate staff and suspend operations, according to the latest Reuters calculations.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – U.S. crude jumped to a 28-month high of $100 a barrel on Wednesday, as investors weighed the risk of Middle East unrest spreading from Libya to bigger exporters including Saudi Arabia.

U.S. crude for April delivery rose 2.8 percent to settle at $98.10 per barrel after soaring as high as $100.

Brent, which has posted the biggest three-day gain since October 2009, rose 5.3 percent to settle at $111.25, its highest close since before the collapse of U.S. investment bank Lehman Brothers in 2008.

The standoff between an increasingly isolated Libyan strongman Muammar Gaddafi and rebel factions now in control of oil-rich eastern Libya has cut output in the world’s No. 12 crude exporter by at least 25 percent, or 400,000 barrels a day, according to Reuters calculations.

The death toll from Gaddafi’s attempts to crush a revolt against his four-decade rule may already be as high as 1,000 people, Italy’s Foreign Minister said.

Austria’s OMV was the latest oil company to confirm it was cutting production in Libya, although some crude shipments were still leaving the country, with at least three oil tankers dispatched since Tuesday.

The unrest has traders wondering when OPEC and its kingpin producer Saudi Arabia could boost oil output and stem the price surge. Saudi officials have said the kingdom, which holds the bulk of OPEC’s spare production capacity, would act to make up for any major disruption.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Oil surged to a 28-month high of $100 a barrel on Wednesday as escalating violence in OPEC producer Libya slashed output there and investors bet the unrest could spread to other oil exporters.

Brent has posted the biggest three-day gain since October 2009, rising to as much as $111.85 a barrel. That marked its highest since October 2008, shortly after the collapse of U.S. investment bank Lehman Brothers.

U.S. crude has shot up more than 15 percent since Friday.

West Texas Intermediate futures rose 3.7 percent to $99 a barrel as of 1:37 p.m. EST in New York, paring some earlier gains. Brent gave up some of its earlier advance to trade up 5.1 percent at $111.18.

A lethal political standoff between Libyan strongman Muammar Gaddafi and rebel factions now in control of oil-rich eastern Libya has already cut output in the world’s No. 12 crude exporter by more than 25 percent, or 400,000 barrels a day, according to Reuters calculations.

The price surge raised concern about the impact of costly fuel on a fragile U.S. economic recovery and dragged U.S. equities lower. A jump in oil to a record $147 a barrel during 2008 led to demand destruction and contributed to the deepest global economic downturn since World War Two.

Traders are weighing the risk that popular revolts, which have been sweeping across North Africa since January, could spread to exporters in the Middle Eastern Gulf.