From today's NYTimes...
Oil Soars as Libyan Furor Shakes Markets
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/23/bu...ZdYpKDEq4a7Bgg
The unrest that has spread from Tunisia to Libya pushed oil prices to a two-year high and has spurred an increase in gasoline prices.
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Oil is now at a price not seen since the recession began,
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Europe appears most immediately vulnerable to the strife in Libya, which produces almost 2 percent of the world’s oil. More than 85 percent of its exports go to Europe; more than a third goes to Italy alone. Libya sends only a small fraction of its oil to the United States, but because oil is a world commodity, Americans are not immune to the price shock waves.
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While Libya has been the immediate cause for the spike in oil prices recently, oil experts said traders were driving up prices because of concerns that a long period of instability in the Middle East was just beginning.
Pretty much underscores what's been said already in this thread.
In another article this...
Foreign companies and Libyan factions focused intensely on the fate of the country’s substantial oil reserves. The Italian oil company Eni confirmed that it had suspended use of a pipeline from Libya to Sicily that provides 10 percent of Italy’s natural gas.
That country is going to plunge into civil war shortly, I'm certain of it.