Oil prices are rising on Monday amid the situation in Libya, where two export ports have stopped working due to protests against the incumbent Prime Minister Abdul Hamid Dbeib.

Libyan state-owned oil company National Oil Corp. on Sunday announced the suspension of production at the El Feel field in the west of the country, which provides oil production of about 65,000 barrels per day. As a result, supplies to the Mellitah export terminal have stopped.

In addition, according to Bloomberg agency, the work of the export terminal Zuwetina in the West of Libya was stopped because of the protests.

There was no oil trading on Friday due to the weekend in the UK and the US.

“Prices are rising as fears of supply shortages outweigh expectations of weakening demand in China,” said Stephen Innes, managing partner at SPI Asset Management.

The end of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict is not yet visible, and many traders refuse to extend contracts for the purchase of energy resources in Russia, thus independently imposing sanctions against themselves, says the expert.

Meanwhile, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak believes that Russian oil and gas will not be replaced on the world market in the horizon of five to ten years. Even statements about the cessation of energy supplies from Russia lead to price spikes on world markets, while physical restrictions are fraught with new historical records, Novak said in an article published in the journal “Energy Policy”.

The cost of June futures for Brent crude oil on London’s ICE Futures exchange by 8:20 Moscow time on Monday is $112.4 per barrel, up $0.7 (0.63%) from the previous session’s closing price. At the end of trading on Thursday, these contracts rose by $2.92 (2.7%) to $111.7 per barrel.

The price of WTI oil futures for May at the electronic trading of the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX) is at this time $107.59 per barrel, which is $0.64 (0.6%) higher than the final value of the previous session. The day before, the cost of these contracts rose by $2.7 (2.6%) to $106.95 per barrel.