On the New York Mercantile Exchange, light, sweet crude futures for delivery in April traded at $101.94 a barrel at 0514 GMT, up $0.38 in the Globex electronic session. April Brent crude on London’s ICE Futures exchange rose $0.37 to $108.47 a barrel. Crude edged higher overnight after Crimea’s Moscow-backed government set a referendum for March 16 to ratify its decision to secede from Ukraine and join Russia, ratcheting up tensions. The U.S. has set the stage for sanctions against people who are destabilizing Ukraine as well as certain visa restrictions. The European Union has said it would impose tough sanctions against Moscow if Russia doesn’t begin negotiations with Ukraine soon. “Short-term disruptions in oil and gas exports due to a possible escalation of the situation in Ukraine would be limited,” Johannes Benigni, founder and director of JBC Energy, said in the firm’s monthly report. He said about 310,000 […]