Brent crude oil rose more than $1 a barrel on Wednesday after an explosion on a Tel Aviv bus intensified concerns the clashes between Gaza and Israel could lead to a wider regional conflict that would disrupt oil flows.

An explosion hit a bus in the heart of Tel Aviv on Wednesday, wounding at least 10 people in what officials said was a terrorist attack.

This dented mounting hopes that a ceasefire may be brokered in coming days.

Israeli air strikes shook the Gaza Strip and Palestinian rockets struck across the border as U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton held talks in Jerusalem in the early hours of Wednesday.

Brent crude futures were up $1.07 cents at $110.90 a barrel by 1044 GMT, off an earlier session-high of $111.08. U.S. crude rose 71 cents to $87.46.

If there is any progress on a truce, there could be a fairly sizeable retreat in oil, said Thorbjørn Bak Jensen, an analyst at A/S Global Risk Management in Middelfart, Denmark.

"If there is a ceasefire, prices will come down again. Most of the increase we've had the past week or so has been on speculation of what will happen in the Middle East," he said.

Although little oil is produced in Israel or neighbouring Egypt, fears that major oil producing Arab nations could become involved in the conflict have aroused fears that supplies from the Gulf can be disrupted.

Gains were capped as fears for the demand outlook returned to the fore after euro zone finance ministers ended a meeting in Brussels on Wednesday without agreement on the next tranche of loans to Greece.

Concerns on the U.S economy also weighed on prices, as Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke warned that failure to resolve a budget crisis could lead to recession in the world's biggest oil consumer.

Prices are likely to move fairly rapidly as the course of the Gaza conflict unfolds, said Jeremy Friesen, commodity strategist at Societe Generale in Hong Kong.

"We're going to see some crazy volatility in the market with rising geopolitics and rising economic uncertainty. The Middle East tensions could continue to give prices some life in the near term but we suspect that bearish economic factors will be dominant."

Geopolitics, inventories

Adding to geopolitical risks, the US on Tuesday blocked a U.N. Security Council statement condemning the escalating conflict between Israel and the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, setting the scene for a possible showdown between Washington and Russia on the issue.

Investors will watch U.S. inventory data from the Energy Information Administration at 1530 GMT for more clues on the outlook for supply.

Crude oil and gasoline inventories were forecast to have increased last week while distillate stockpiles were seen down on higher heating oil demand.

U.S. crude oil inventories tumbled last week due to a drop in imports, data from the American Petroleum Institute released on Tuesday showed.

Total U.S. crude stocks fell by more than 1.9 million barrels in the week to Nov. 16, after analysts polled by Reuters had forecast a build of 900,000 barrels. – TradeArabia News Service