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NEW YORK (Reuters) – Brent lubricator prices chromatic on weekday on intensified offend in Libya and U.S. prices lapse after accumulation showed vulgar inventories chromatic more than cod terminal week, increment Brent's payment against U.S. crude.

Brent vulgar for Apr conveying gained $2.54 to $115.60 a containerful by 1:16 p.m. EST (1816 GMT), having earlier hit $116.18.

U.S. Apr vulgar lapse 33 cents to $104.69 a barrel, after touch an early high of $105.92.

The payment of Brent vulgar over U.S. benchmark West Texas Intermediate vulgar ballooned more than $2 to above $11 a barrel, after dipping beneath $7 on Tuesday.

Muammar Gaddafi's forces struck an lubricator pipeline directive to the Es Sider town and dropped bombs on hardware tanks in the Ras Lanuf lubricator terminal area in the orient country of Libya that is rebel-controlled.

But African land broadcasting blamed the explosions on "al Qaeda-backed" armed elements.

Gaddafi's forces were closing in on the rebel-held important square of Zawiyah, where offend has led to the approaching of digit of Libya's biggest refineries.

HIGHER U.S. STOCKPILES

U.S. vulgar prices weakened after accumulation from the U.S. Energy Information Administration showed vulgar inventories chromatic 2.51 meg barrels terminal week, dwarfing the prognosticate for an process of meet 400,000 barrels in a Reuters poll.

More informing for U.S. crude, vulgar stocks at the key conveying hub in Cushing, Oklahoma, soared 1.69 meg barrels to a record 40.26 meg barrels.

But losses for U.S. vulgar were restricted as the weekly accumulation showed drawdowns for gasoline and liquid inventories were large than expected, reflecting improving demand.

PROLONGED STRUGGLE?

Perception of prolonged pain in Libya was dynamical the feat in lubricator prices, said Christopher Bellew, an lubricator trader at Bache Commodities in London.

"As the hunting for Western participation looks inferior likely -- which would alter things to a hurried closing -- then we are hunting at a prolonged struggle," he said.

About 1 meg barrels per day of Libya's production have been shut by the raging conflict. Libya, a member of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, has a connatural creation of 1.6 meg bpd.

Libyan lubricator trade has been unfit as banks decline to clear payments in dollars cod to U.S. sanctions, though Austrian forcefulness group OMV said it had been purchase diminutive amounts of African vulgar lubricator and would move to do so.

NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh adventurer said the alliance was not hunting to intervene in Libya, but its expeditionary was primed to move at short notice.

World powers were ease considering imposing a no-fly regularize over the Libya, with British Prime Minister king Cameron hunt international support for some measures to be taken.

Oil prices lapse on weekday after Kuwait's lubricator rector said OPEC was considering upbringing production cod to the African outage.

But an OPEC assign said on weekday that the group saw no need for an crisis gathering to handle upbringing output.

Leading OPEC producer Arabian Arabia is already pumping more lubricator -- up to 9 meg barrels per day -- to ready supplies acquirable if needed.

OPEC member Algeria's lubricator minister, Youcef Yousfi, told an business word in Houston on weekday that there was no insufficiency of supply, despite the disruptions in Libya, and that OPEC would move to some real shortage.

(Additional news by parliamentarian Gibbons, king Sheppard and Janet McGurty in New York; Claire Milhench in London; Alejandro Barbajosa in Singapore; Editing by Walter Bagley)

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