Oil prices finished higher on Monday as traders and investors assessed the impact of Hurricane Irma on Florida’s energy demand and Hurricane Harvey’s damage to oil refineries on the Gulf Coast, according to Bloomberg MarketWatch.
October West Texas Intermediate crude added 59 cents, or 1.2%, to settle at $48.07 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
November Brent crude, the global benchmark, inched up by 6 cents, or 0.1%, to finish at $53.84 a barrel on the ICE Futures Europe Exchange.
Analysts at Goldman Sachs said in a note on Monday that the negative impact on oil demand from Hurricane Irma will be smaller than Hurricane Harvey because “Texas has twice the oil consumption per capita of Florida given the significant concentration of refining and petrochemical capacity on the U.S. Gulf Coast.”
Investors and analysts were also looking ahead to monthly reports from OPEC and the International Energy Agency due on Tuesday and Wednesday, respectively, for the latest OPEC production data and global demand forecasts. The U.S. Energy Information Administration will also release its monthly short-term energy outlook report Tuesday.
Meanwhile, October natural gas bucked the trend among its energy peers to finish 6 cents, or 2.1%, higher at $2.950 per million British thermal units back on the New York Mercantile Exchange.