Oil Finally Pulls Back

Elsewhere, Nigerian presidential candidate and opposition leader Adebayo Adefarati died overnight in a hospital in the Southern coastal region of Ondo. Adefarati, age 76, was the chief of the Alliance for Democracy party. His death is sparking greater uncertainty about the way the April presidential elections will be handled.

According to the 2006 Electoral Act that governs presidential elections in Nigeria, the National Electoral Commission is supposed to "appoint some other convenient date for the election" in the event of the death of a candidate. However, the head of the electoral commission was quick to announce that the presidential elections would be held on April 21 as originally planned.

Violence between the government of current president Olusegun Obasanjo and various rebel groups has escalated sharply since the first of the year. The majority of the violence has occurred in Nigeria's delta region where the country's vast oil and gas producing regions are located.

Rebels have been kidnapping foreigners in the region and holding them for ransom. Obasanjo is flooding the region with troops, in part to restrain the rebels, but also to quash political opposition during his re-election effort.

If violence increases in Nigeria in the weeks leading up to the elections, it will most likely generate further stress on crude supplies, sending prices higher, Meir said.