Energy Up After Libya Explosion -- Energy Rondup

Shares of oil and gas companies rose after outages in Libya drove oil prices to a two-and-a-half year high. U.S. crude futures recently traded up $1.33, or 2.27%, to $59.80 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, on track to settle at their highest level since June 2015. An explosion earlier Tuesday on a pipeline leading to Libya's largest oil port of Es Sider is expected to reduce oil production there by up to 100,000 barrels a day, the country's National Oil Co. said on its website. The outage came shortly after a long hiatus in a key North Sea pipeline, The Forties system.

-Rob Curran, rob.curran@dowjones.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

December 26, 2017 16:21 ET (21:21 GMT)