Oil rises above $98 in Asia

Singapore: Oil prices rose above $ 98 a barrel Wednesday in Asia as fears that the clashes in Bahrain and Libya could further disrupt crude supplies outweigh the disaster concerns in Japan will crimp demand.
Benchmark crude for April delivery was up 97 cents to $ 98.15 a barrel on the evening Singapore time in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
In London Brent Crude was up $ 1.75 at $ 110.27 a barrel on the Stock Exchange ICE Futures.
Demostrators in Bahrain said at least two people were killed on Wednesday when troops and police battled anti-government protesters. On Tuesday, about 1000 troops from Saudi Arabia, Bahrain joined on the request of the government to help crush the rebellion.
Meanwhile, a month of fighting between government and rebel forces in Libya to cut most of the OPEC nation.
"The market should be more focused on the Middle East," said Ben Westmore, commodities economist at National Australia Bank. "I do not see too much more than lack of oil prices from here."
"The drop in prices we saw in the last couple of days is not justified, given that events in the Middle East continues to simmer along and threaten world oil supplies."
Crude fell $ 4.01 to settle at $ 97.18 on Tuesday as Japan fought for control of the damaged nuclear power plants and to cope with the devastating earthquake and tsunami.
There is a "broad-based de-risking in the majority of stock and commodity markets, coupled with the tragic turn of events in Japan," Ritterbusch and Associates said in a report. "Japanese economic uncertainty bearish for oil."
American Petroleum Institute said late Tuesday that crude stocks rose 91,000 barrels last week, while analysts polled by Platts, the energy information arm McGraw-Hill Cos, predicted an increase of 2.1 million barrels. Gasoline stocks fell 458,000 barrels and distillates Rose 531,000 barrels, API said.
The energy of the Department of Energy Information Administration reports its weekly supply data later Wednesday.
In other Nymex trading contracts for April heating oil fell 1.5 cents to $ 2.94 per gallon for gasoline fell 1.2 cents to $ 2.79 per gallon. Natural gas rose 2.5 cents to $ 3.97 per 1000 cubic feet.