Summary Oil prices rose on Monday, in line with equity markets and on improved sentiment.
LONDON (AFP) - Oil prices rose on Monday, in line with equity markets and on improved sentiment after Cyprus and its international creditors struck a bailout deal, averting collapse of the eurozone country s banking system.
Brent North Sea crude for delivery in May increased 69 cents to $108.35 a barrel in London midday deals.
New York s main contract, light sweet crude for May, added 45 cents to $94.16 a barrel.
"The oil market is reacting positively to news that Cyprus has reached a deal," said analyst Victor Shum at IHS Purvin and Gertz.
"There is now more clarity to the events in Cyprus," Singapore-based Shum told AFP.
The European Union, European Central Bank and International Monetary Fund struck a last-minute deal with Cyprus in the early hours of Monday that qualifies the island for a much-needed rescue package to help it service its debt.
The agreement involves breaking up the island s second largest lender Laiki (Popular Bank), while deposits above 100,000 euros ($130,000) with the Bank of Cyprus, the island s main lender, will face big losses.
Leaders had been under pressure to reach a deal after the ECB warned it would cut off funding to the island s banks if nothing had been done by Monday, which would have led to their collapse and likely forced Cyprus out of the eurozone.
Elsewhere, OPEC s largest oil producing member Saudi Arabia said that crude priced around $100 a barrel was "reasonable."
"In 1997, I thought 20 dollars was reasonable. In 2006, I thought 27 dollars was reasonable," Saudi Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi told reporters Monday in Kuwait City on the sidelines of a Gulf oil conference.
"Now, it is around $100 ... and I say again it is reasonable " -- despite some market observers noting that the current level of energy prices was putting a strain on global economic recovery.
