SULAIMANI (ESTA) — Oil prices rose on Wednesday, as producers in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico struggle to restart operations nine days after Hurricane Ida swept through.
Brent crude futures inched up 37 cents to $72.06 a barrel at 0657 GMT, after falling 0.7% on Tuesday.
U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures rose 44 cents to $68.79 per barrel, after sliding 1.4% on Tuesday following the Labor Day holiday.
“The market is … weighing up the impact of ongoing delays to the resumption of operations in the Gulf of Mexico,” Reuters quoted ANZ Research analysts as saying.
Nearly 79% of U.S. Gulf production remained offline on Tuesday, with 79 production platforms still unoccupied more than a week after Hurricane Ida made landfall, according to Reuters.
Approximately 17.5 million barrels of oil has been lost to the market so far.
Oil prices fell on Tuesday in a widespread commodity sell-off as the U.S. dollar jumped on worries about rising COVID-19 cases in the United States and Asia potentially slowing growth.
