SULAIMANI (ESTA) — Oil prices rose for a second session on Thursday, recovering from earlier losses as a decline in U.S. Gulf of Mexico output following damages from Hurricane Ida underpinned the market.
Brent crude futures climbed 3 cents to $72.63 at 0720 GMT and West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude rose 12 cents to $69.42 per barrel.
“U.S. production is struggling to recover from Hurricane Ida,” Reuters quoted ANZ as saying.
“Extensive damage to infrastructure and power outages mean Ida has knocked off more supply after nine days than any other storm,” it said.
About 77% of U.S. Gulf production remained offline on Tuesday, or about 1.4 million barrels per day (bpd).
The market has lost around 17.5 million barrels of oil so far.
The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) said on Wednesday U.S. crude oil production could fall by 200,000 barrels bpd in 2021 to 11.08 million bpd.
It further said Hurricane Ida should force a bigger decline that its previous forecast for a drop of 160,000 bpd.
American Petroleum Institute (API) date showed that crude drawdown for the week ended September 3 was smaller than expected, but gasoline and distillate drawdowns were bigger than expected.
U.S. gasoline stocks felly by 6.4 million barrels for the week ended September 3, while crude stocks dropped by 2.9 million barrels.
U.S. distillate stocks dropped by 3.7 million barrels over the same week, API data showed.
