Oil futures settled higher on Election Eve Monday following worries about oil supplies after a 5.0 magnitude earthquake rocked the Cushing storage hub, according to Bloomberg MarketWatch.
On the New York Mercantile Exchange, December West Texas Intermediate crude tacked on 82 cents, or 1.9%, to settle at $44.89 a barrel.
On London’s ICE Futures Exchange, January Brent crude, the global benchmark, gained 57 cents, or 1.3%, to end trading at $46.15 a barrel.
Despite significant damage to some of the downtown Cushing buildings, there was no reported impact on the storage tanks or pipelines at Cushing, although some pipelines were shut down temporarily to check integrity, said James Williams, energy economist at WTRG Economics.
On the New York Mercantile Exchange, December natural gas rose 4.9 cents, or 1.8%, to settle at $2.816 per million British thermal units.
