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Oil Holds at Five-Month High as Hurricane Nears U.S. Gulf Coast


These translations are done via Google Translate

By Ann Koh and Alex Longley

(Bloomberg) Oil held near a five-month high as Hurricane Laura bore down on key refining facilities on the U.S. Gulf Coast, with forecasts saying it will strengthen rapidly into a “potentially catastrophic” Category 4 storm.Futures in New York were steady after jumping 1.7% on Tuesday. The storm is expected to make landfall late Wednesday or early Thursday along the Texas-Louisiana coast, according to the National Hurricane Center. More than 84% of oil output in the Gulf of Mexico has now shut, while almost 3 million barrels a day of refining capacity has been closed.

Prices also got a boost after the American Petroleum Institute reported U.S. oil inventories fell by 4.52 million barrels last week and gasoline stockpiles shrunk by 6.39 million barrels, according to people familiar with the data. That would be the fifth straight weekly decline in crude supplies if the industry estimates are confirmed by official data due Wednesday.

U.S. oil inventories likely fell for a fifth straight week

Laura has the potential to take some big refineries offline and disrupt global energy flows. On its current track, the storm could lead to around 10% to 12% of U.S. refining capacity being shut for more than six months, according to a disaster modeler with Enki Research. Tanker rates to ship gasoline from Europe to the U.S. are already surging even before Laura makes landfall.

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“Oil traders will be pre-occupied with the developments of the hurricane today,” said Tamas Varga, an analyst at brokerage PVM Oil Associates Ltd. “The most dangerous hurricane of the past 15 years is approaching the major U.S. oil producing and refining center.”

Prices:
  • WTI for October delivery fell 8 cents to $43.27 a barrel at 10:59 a.m. in London
  • Brent for October settlement slipped 4 cents to $45.82
    • It traded above its 200-day moving average on Tuesday for the first time since January and closed at a five-month high
  • Nymex gasoline futures fell 0.6% to 138.75 cents a gallon

The hurricane will likely only have a short-term impact on global prices, however, with this year’s lackluster summer driving season nearing an end and a pickup in consumption remaining uncertain due to the pandemic. Gasoline demand in key consuming nations appears stuck at about 10% to 15% below year-earlier levels, while jet fuel usage is much further behind.

Brent’s front-month futures contract was trading at a discount of 39 cents to the second month. This contango structure has narrowed sharply since the storm first appeared, as the shut-down of some U.S. crude output makes supplies from outside of North America more valuable.

Other oil-market news
  • As the age of the hydrocarbon enters its final era, the action increasingly moves to Asia and plastics take center stage. Massive integrated refineries sprouting up across the region are driving consolidation.
  • OPEC will raise output by just a fraction of the 1.3m b/d permitted for August under its agreement, Geneva-based tanker tracker Petro-Logistics said by email.


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