The turmoil in Libya won't disrupt the relatively comfortable supply situation in global oil markets in the first half of this year, a senior analyst with the International Energy Agency said Friday, one day after the agency opted against tapping strategic stocks in response to the significant outages in Libya.

"We don't think at the present time there is a major outage that cannot in the short term be met through flexibility in the refining system and shifting crude oil supplies around," said David Fyfe, the head of the IEA's oil industry and markets division. "Obviously, if that supply outage worsens or is of long duration, then we'd have to revisit the whole situation."

The IEA estimates that 500,000 to 750,000 have been removed from the market due to the crisis in Libya . The agency said it would "continue to closely monitor" the situation and could tap strategic stocks "when deemed necessary." An IEA statement Thursday night pointed out that leading producers in OPEC are ready to respond with extra volumes and noted that IEA members have significant emergency stocks.

On Friday, Fyfe characterized the global oil market as "comparatively well supplied, at the present time."

Fyfe noted that due to seasonal refinery maintenance, crude demand in Europe is about a half million barrels per day lower in February and March than in November and December.

Fyfe said it was difficult to estimate the total impact of the unrest on oil production, in part because of the murky status of some 500,000 barrels a day controlled by the Libyan national oil company. Some other experts, such as Eni SpA (E) Chief Executive Paolo Scaroni, have estimated that 1.2 million of Libya 's 1.6 million barrel a day output is now off-line.

"The figure we gave yesterday was what we had that had been made public by the Western companies active in Libya ," Fyfe explained. "We're pulling together more information today. That process, we haven't completed it yet. It would not be wise to speculate whether that's gonna rise or not," he said, adding the number "may well change in the coming days."

"We're speaking to shipping companies, we're speaking to the companies active on the ground and we're speaking to the refiners on the Mediterranean fringe to see what they're experiencing," he said.

Fyfe said emergency "stocks are an insurance policy of sort of last resort. We'd like the market to fill the gap."

Beyond a simple supply volume issue, some refiners might worry that they won't get the same high quality crude oil as from Libya , he said. "Certain Libyan grades are highly valued for gasoline and diesel and jet fuel manufacture," he said.

One option could lie in potential swaps, with Saudi Arabia -- the world's biggest oil producer -- looking into sending Middle Eastern oil long-haul into Asia "and potentially looking at swaps with African producers sending more light sweet crude into the Mediterranean basin," Fyfe said. "We have an Asian refining system that in itself is becoming more complex and more able to handle lower-quality crude oil. There is more flexibility within the global refining system and therefore there is a capability to juggle crude slates," he added.

Fyfe said governments might opt to issue temporary waivers for some oil products specifications if the current outage is long-term.

Fyfe said it was very difficult to assess if Libyan output will be able to be restored quickly once the crisis subsides.

"It seems to us that there has not been major damage to oil installations yet and therefore that would suggest that there should not be too many problems reinstating production when the political situation has resolved. But of course that could change at any time. But at the moment we're encouraged by the fact that there are not major reports of damage to oil installations," he said.

After a peak Thursday, oil prices have retreated somewhat yet remain at a high level.

At 1137 GMT, the front-month April Brent contract on London 's ICE futures exchange was up 66 cents at $112.02 a barrel. The contract nearly hit $120 a barrel early Thursday. The front-month April contract on the New York Mercantile Exchange was trading 59 cents up at $97.87 a barrel, down from above $103 a barrel at one point Thursday.

Speaking in Singapore , French finance minister Christine Lagarde said Friday that high oil and commodity prices due to tensions in the Middle East are a matter of concern "for all," and that international authorities must be alert to "massive" speculation. Her comments echoed that of Russian prime minister Vladimir Putin who said Thursday in Brussels that energy prices were posing a "serious threat to the world."

"We are certainly concerned that the persistence of prices at this sort of levels is a real risk in terms of undermining economic recovery, or at least retarding economic recovery," IEA's Fyfe said. "Our members are concerned about oil prices at these levels," he added.

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