AKIPRESS.COM - Crude prices rose Thursday, reacting to increased violence in oil-producing Iraq, the Wall Street Journal said Thursday.

Brent crude for July delivery was up 1.1% at $111.13 a barrel on ICE Futures Europe. U.S. crude-oil futures were up 0.94% at $105.37 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

Yesterday's meeting of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries concluded as expected with confirmation of the group's 30 million barrels a day target ceiling.

"However, OPEC members (read Saudi Arabia specifically) might soon have to deal with the consequences of the spiraling conflict in Iraq," where a militant group has overrun both the northern cities of Mosul and Tikrit, JBC said.

Iraq has been ramping up production in recent months, and has a target of 4 million barrels a day by the end of 2014. Most of the country's oil production is in the south, far from the current violence.

The situation also places Iraq's semiautonomous Kurdish region, which has begun to export oil in recent weeks, at an advantage, said analyst Malcolm Graham-Wood.

"At a time when Baghdad is under threat what better way to remind the world that their oil has a pipeline export route through Turkey?" he wrote on his blog.

He also noted that "the Iraqi oil minister at the OPEC conference…said that this trouble made an agreement with the KRG 'more likely.'"

Recently the ICE's gasoil contract for June delivery was up $9.50 at $902.50 a metric ton, while Nymex gasoline for July delivery was up 310 points at $3.0318 a gallon.