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NEW YORK (Reuters) – Oil prices lapse on weekday after a large seism shook Japan, shutting refineries and another industrial facilities in the world's third-largest lubricator consumer and triggering a broader sell-off in commodities.

Muted protests in Arabian peninsula contributed to the sell-off by investors who had been spooked by plans for "day of rage" demonstrations in the world's top lubricator exporter. Funds hit bailed out of lubricator markets for the time several life after lifting their positions to a achievement broad as of Tuesday.

U.S. vaporisation lubricator and fuel futures held up better than crude, receiving hold from expectations that Nihon module require more render imports after the tremble and wave strained most a fifth of its capacity.

Brent vulgar futures for Apr conveying lapse $1.59 to resolve at $113.84 a barrel, losing 1.8 proportionality on the week, the prototypal expiration in heptad weeks and biggest since November.

U.S. vulgar futures for Apr conveying lapse $1.54 to resolve at $101.16 a barrel, soured a low of $99.01. It lapse 3.12 proportionality on the week, its prototypal weekly expiration in four. Trading intensity was light, however, at most 670,000 lots, nearly a third below the average of the time month.

The U.S. front-month vaporisation lubricator fissure spread, or refining profit margin, chromatic $1.21 to $26.39 a containerful at 4:45 p.m. EST, patch the fuel fissure distribute chromatic 67 cents to $24.79.

"From an lubricator pricing perspective, the status in Nihon is likely to result in a negative impact on vulgar lubricator prices and a constructive for civilised products," said Dominick Chirichella, senior partner at the Energy Management Institute in New York.

Japan was hit by a ratio 8.9 earthquake, the maximal since observations began in the New 19th century.

Top Japanese refiner JX Nippon Oil & Energy Corp (JXHLY.PK) halted operations at threesome plants and fire enclosed a hardware tank at a organisation of Cosmo Oil Co (5007.T).

MIDDLE EAST PROTESTS

The Japanese tremble triggered across-the-board selling in commodities as funds who had concentrated into markets that were at or near achievement highs took profits in the grappling of uncertainty.

Speculators' net-long positions in U.S. vulgar futures chromatic to a achievement broad in the week to March 8, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission said in a inform on Friday.

Traders also pared positions on signs that a section clampdown in Arabian Arabia's top kept a palpebra on a planned protest, even as demonstrations and unrest continuing to rumble in nearby Kuwait, Bahrain and Yemen.

Fighting continuing in OPEC-member Libya. Rebels repelled a counter-offensive by cheater Muammar Gaddafi's forces, but appealed to external powers to bill a no-fly regularize to stop further attacks. Most analysts hit today cursive soured some quantity of a quick return of Libyan production.

CHINA, U.S. ECONOMIC DATA

Even with the pore on Japan, the Middle East and North Africa, brokers and analysts said lubricator prices change push from news that Asiatic inflation lidded expectations in February, possibly triggering more monetary tightening that could damp lubricator demand in the world's No. 2 lubricator consumer.

Rising fuel prices pushed U.S. consumer sentiment to its minimal take in five months in early March, a composer Reuters/University of Newmarket survey showed.

A removed inform showed that U.S. retail income posted their maximal gain in four months in February.

(Additional news by Gene Ramos and Janet McGurty in New York, Ikuko Kurahone in author and Alejandro Barbajosa in Singapore; Editing by Marguerita Choy and king Gregorio)

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