Bareksa.com - Brent crude rose towards $114 a barrel on Wednesday as Sunni militants pushed forward in northern Iraq, striking a key refinery near Baghdad and stoking worries about oil exports from the key producer.

The rapid advance of militants in northern Iraq has led oil companies to pull foreign staff out of the country, fearing violence could spread to major oilfields concentrated in the south.

Further increasing tensions, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said his country would not hesitate to defend Shi'ite holy sites in neighbouring Iraq.

Brent rose 20 cents to $113.65 a barrel by 0815 GMT. U.S. crude gained 35 cents to $106.71 a barrel after a draw in domestic stocks.

Worries about disruption to Iraq's supply drove up both benchmarks by more than 4 percent last week, the biggest weekly jump since July for Brent and since December for U.S. crude.

Sunni militants on Wednesday renewed their attack on Iraq's biggest oil refinery, Baiji, with machine-gun fire and mortars. The plant north of Baghdad has been shut and its foreign staff evacuated, although refinery officials said local staff remain in place and the military is in control of the facility.

"Crude prices are reacting to the headlines on the attack on the Baiji refinery," said Olivier Jakob, analyst at Zug, Switzerland-based consultancy Petromatrix.

"The insurgents are trying to create more instability. After the 2003 conflict, one of the first things the United States did was to get the refinery back running and petrol shortages would create more domestic instability," Jakob said.

Iraqi officials say the southern regions that produce some 90 percent of the country's oil are completely safe from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).

IRAQ'S OIL OUTPUT TARGET AT RISK

But the International Energy Agency (IEA) said Iraq's oil output target of 4 million barrels per day by the end of the year looks increasingly at risk, just as demand is picking up due to a stronger global economy.

U.S. crude was supported by data from industry group American Petroleum Institute (API) showing crude stocks fell by 5.7 million barrels last week to 378.2 million, compared with analysts' expectations for a drop of 650,000 barrels.

Crude stocks at the Cushing, Oklahoma, delivery hub rose by 255,000 barrels, the API said. The U.S. Department of Energy's Energy Information Administration (EIA) is due to release its closely watched data at 1430 GMT.

Oil investors will also keep an eye on the outcome of the Federal Reserve's policy meeting later in the day. The Fed is widely expected to shave another $10 billion from its monthly bond purchases, which have supported commodity prices by injecting extra liquidity. (Source : Reuters)