LONDON: Oil prices fell on Friday as Hurricane Laura raced inland past the heart of the US oil industry in Louisiana and Texas without causing any widespread damage to refineries.
Brent crude futures for October, set to expire on Friday, had fallen 19 cents to $44.90 a barrel. US West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures were down 20 cents to $42.84 a barrel.
“With the US Gulf hurricanes out of the way and preliminary assessment showing no damage to upstream or downstream facilities, crude has surrendered most of the storm premium and could enter a holding pattern again,” said Vandana Hari, oil market analyst at Vanda Insights.
“Crude prices have barely budged this week, but refining margins have been hammered as flash floods disrupt normal consumption patterns, likely for a longer period of time than (Gulf of Mexico) production remains offline,” said RBC Capital in a note.
American producers had shut 1.56 million barrels per day (bpd) of crude output, or 83 per cent of the Gulf of Mexico’s production, while nine refineries had shut around 2.9 million bpd of capacity, or 15 per cent of US processing capacity, ahead of the storm.