SULAIMANI (ESTA) — Oil prices were mixed on Monday, as a powerful hurricane ploughing through the Gulf of Mexico forces shutdowns and evacuations of hundreds of offshore oil platforms.
Brent crude was up 10 cents to $72.80 a barrel by 0625 GMT. It rose more than 11% last week in anticipation of disruptions to oil production from Ida.
U.S. oil turned negative and was down by 36 cents at $68.38 per barrel, having jumped a little over 10% over last week.
The benchmarks hit highs not seen since early August, $73.69 and $69.64, respectively, earlier in the session, as Ida slammed into the coast near Port Fourchon, Louisiana, a hub of the Gulf’s offshore energy industry.
“It’s still early days to know the full impact of Hurricane Ida,” Reuters cited Vivek Dhar, commodities analyst at Commonwealth Bank of Australia, as saying.
“Oil products, like gasoline and diesel, are likely to see prices rise more acutely from refinery outages, especially if there are difficulties in bringing refineries and pipelines back online,” he added.
