In the early days of the Libyan uprising, the world's top oil producers and consumers could be found in Riyadh celebrating their frank discussions on energy co-operation.
Since that gathering in February, the conflict and its six-month toll on energy markets have chipped away at producer-consumer relations while exposing rifts between the world's major oil exporters.
Libya, a member of Opec, pumped 1.6 million barrels per day (bpd) - just 2 per cent of the world's oil - but European refiners prize its light, high-quality crude. Its loss from the market sent the price of the benchmark crude Brent from about US$100 a barrel in early February to $127 in April. "The price levels are definitely too high for the global economic recovery," warned Fatih Birol, the chief economist for the International Energy Agency (IEA), the organisation in Paris that represents 28 industrialised oil-importing nations.
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