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Brent crude had jumped 2.6% by late afternoon to $105.2 a barrel, its highest level since before the 2008 financial crisis. European energy companies are evacuating some staff from the country, which is a major oil and gas producer for the European market. Sources said, the price of oil has risen in response to the ongoing turmoil in Libya for last five days. Meanwhile shares in Italian oil firm ENI - which is active in Libya - ended Monday trading 5.1% lower. The Italian company said on Monday that its operations were unaffected by the violence. Italy buys about one-third of Libya's oil and gas exports, making it the country's biggest customer by far. ENI has been buying gas from Libya for decades, and is at the centre of a close political relationship between the two countries, according to one analyst. In 2008-09, the Libyan government had considered buying an up-to- 10% stake in ENI , although the investment did not go ahead. Some 13% of the company's reven

Crude futures fell more than $1 on Tuesday after an overnight rate increase in India and a surprise contraction in the UK economy fanned concerns about the pace of the global recovery, and ahead of an expected build-up in U.S. inventories due later. By 1257 GMT, U.S. crude benchmark West Texas Intermediate (WTI) was down $1.23 at $86.64 a barrel. Brent future prices were down $1.19 to $95.42 a barrel. India's overnight interest rate increase was accompanied by a central bank warning that stronger inflation risks remained, renewing concerns that oil-hungry emerging economies could temper their demand growth. "Everything is down today, not just crude," Commerzbank's Carsten Fritsch said, as copper fell more than two percent and gold fell to its lowest in ten weeks. "We saw a similar price move already last week when there was concern about further tightening in China, but it proved to be short-lived." A surprise contraction in fourth-quarter UK GDP also