SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Oil prices inched up on Tuesday on uncertainty over Libyan oil exports, although plans by producer cartel OPEC to raise output continued to drag.
Brent crude futures LCOc1, the international benchmark for oil prices, were at $74.81 per barrel at 0311 GMT, up 8 cents, or 0.1 percent, from their last close.
U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures CLc1 were at $68.24 a barrel, up 16 cents, or 0.22 percent.
Traders said prices were mostly driven up by uncertainty around oil exports by Libya, a member of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC).
Eastern Libyan commander Khalifa Haftar’s forces have handed control of oil ports to a separate National Oil Corporation (NOC) based in the country’s east.
The official state-owned oil company based in the capital Tripoli, also called NOC, will not be allowed to handle that oil anymore, he said.
In comments later confirmed to Reuters, Ahmed Mismari, spokesman of Haftar’s Libya National Army (LNA), said on television that no tanker would be allowed to dock at eastern ports without permission from an NOC entity based in the main eastern city, Benghazi.
“The move increases the risk that Libyan oil output will be shut in as the NOC in Tripoli is the only legal entity with the right to sell oil,” said Sukrit Vijayakar, director of energy consultancy Trifecta.
The uncertainty over Libya’s oil exports comes after OPEC together with a group of non-OPEC partners including top producer OPEC announced a supply rise of around 1 million barrels per day (bpd) aimed at cooling oil markets.
Oil markets have tightened significantly
