Oil prices climbed around 2% on Tuesday as the Middle East crisis and a Libyan supply outage pared the previous day’s heavy losses. “The more attractive alternative for (oil tankers) right now is to make a dash for the United States, where crude oil is cheaper than Brent,” said Bob Yawger, director of energy futures at Mizuho. Brent crude futures settled $1.47, or 1.9%, higher at $77.59 a barrel, while U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude (WTI) ended $1.47, or 2.1%, higher at $72.24.