Higher crude oil prices Tuesday did work to mitigate selling pressure in the gold and silver markets.

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In the squabbling and manoeuvring that went on in the corridors before the vote, all Europe's crude tribal loyalties were at work.

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While the work was early and crude--the researchers had merely demonstrated "read-only" memory thus far--it nevertheless predicted the dawn of a new era of molecular computing.

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But this latest rendering of the century-old work enacts in alternately crude and generalized ways its story of a primitive society's ritual sacrifice to honor the coming season.

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The onset of the Libyan crisis fortuitously coincided with the peak of the European refinery outages, primarily linked to seasonal maintenance work, and thus lower demand for crude oil.

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They called for more investment in the production and refining of crude oil, for more efficient use of energy and more work on alternatives to oil.

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But that was a "very crude calculation, " Mr. Tombs says in an interview, based on the subtraction of one work day's output, or about 1.5% of the quarter's total, from the calendar.

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Even if the cost of crude stabilizes, prices at the pump could still rise by as much as a dime per gallon as earlier hikes work their way to the retail market.

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