Middle East And Beyond

There has been fighting in the streets of Tripoli over the past 24 hours. As of now, Qaddafi has
decided not to steal off quietly into the evening. Libya produces 1.8 mil. bd of crude and liquids
a day, and on site foreign producers might have to pull the plug for a while as fighting rages around.
The US crude price jumped over $5 bd today to $91+ as players began to handicap the prospects
for shut in production of significant proportions in Libya. But, concerns are growing regional in
scope as the popular revolt that kicked off in Tunisia has spread rapidly. There is sufficient idle
production capacity to cover even a full shut down of Libyan production, but the oil trading pits,
which have behaved sensibly since the first spike earlier when Egypt began to heat up, are nervous
once again.

We are now witnessing an anti - autocracy phenomenon which is still spreading and which some
fear will strike other countries in the oil rich middle east as well as in Asia. I think it is best to
keep an open mind about further contagion, but avoid letting imagination take hold too strongly.

Libya energy profile.