Oil has had a volatile month. Approximately 1.3 million barrels a day of Libya's light, sweet crude exports were taken off the market in March, according to the International Energy Agency, as the protests that began around February 17 turned into civil war. By the middle of March, benchmark crudes traded at $10-15 a barrel above their average February levels.

But upside risk to oil prices from Libya and Bahrain was combined with significant downside risk on March 11 when an earthquake and