Why are oil prices so high? Because any supply disruption is critical in current conditions, with demand riding high

A Libyan oil worker walks in front of a refinery inside the Brega oil complex, in Brega east of Libya, on Saturday Feb. 26, 2011. Production at Brega has dropped by almost 90 percent amid the country's crisis because many employees have fled and few ships are coming to offload the product. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)

Tarek El-Tablawy, AP Business Writer, On Monday February 28, 2011, 12:39 pm

CAIRO (AP) -- Libya's oil chief said Monday that production had been cut by around 50 percent, and argued it was "safe" for foreign oil workers to return after a mass exodus sparked by Moammar Gadhafi's increasingly violent campaign to retain control of the country.

The assurances by Shukri Ghanem, the head of the state-run National Oil Co. and Libya's de facto oil minister, came as uncertainty swirled about the state of the OPEC member's production and who was actually in control of the brunt of the nation's oil. Libya sits atop Africa's largest proven reserves.
The country is the only member of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries so far seriously affected by the protests roiling the Arab world, and unrest there has sent shudders through global oil markets.

SHOOT: Jim Kunstler says that he expects Saudi Arabia to explode in the next 3 weeks.  It certainly feels as though a process of 'unravelling' is underway.