WTI Drops to Nearly $43, Brent Crude Settles Above $45 on Friday

slumpingeconomy

Oil futures continued to fall on Friday, with WTI settling near $43 and Brent crude barely making it over $45, according to Bloomberg MarketWatch.

On the New York Mercantile Exchange, October West Texas Intermediate crude fell 88 cents, or 2%, to settle at $43.03 a barrel, marking its lowest finish since August 10. For the week, trading was down 6.2%.

On the London ICE Futures Exchange, November Brent crude, the global benchmark fell 82 cents, or 1.8%, to end trading at $45.77 a barrel. That was its lowest finish month to date. It fell about 4.7% for the week.

Oil prices posted gains Thursday by receiving a boost from a big rally in gasoline futures, which surged by more than 5% as the shutdown of a major gasoline pipeline in Alabama raised concerns over a potential fuel shortage.

On Friday afternoon, Colonial Pipeline indicated excavation operations will continue this week in order to repair the ruptured line, which is expected to restart next week. Colonial Pipeline said Thursday that it expects Alabama, Tennessee, North Carolina and South Carolina to be “the first markets impacted by any potential disruption in supply.”

The “situation is worsening with the Colonial Pipeline,” said Patrick DeHaan, senior petroleum analyst at GasBuddy.com. The “situation could snowball as motorists may find some retailers out of gasoline, putting more of a load on other retailers, who may be under allocation of 85-100% of normal gasoline volumes.”

It is “definitely worth watching and monitoring and will likely get worse with fuel prices rising as a result,” said DeHaan.

On the New York Mercantile Exchange, October natural gas tacked on 2.1 cents, or 0.7%, to finish at $2.948 per million British thermal units, lifting its weekly gain to 5.4%.