Brent crude settled 44 cents higher at US$104.72 a barrel on 9 October as Hurricane Isaias shut more than 70 per cent of US Gulf of Mexico output, erasing earlier losses.
US benchmark West Texas Intermediate (WTI) finished 36 cents up at US$91.85. Both contracts were on course for a weekly gain, Reuters reported, after a week in which fears over the US-Iran war and a storm bearing down on American oil platforms pulled prices in opposite directions.
For importers, including Ghana, the week settled nothing. Brent has held above US$100 since early September, and every swing feeds through to fuel import bills and pump prices.
Prices fell early on Friday after President Donald Trump said Washington was holding “productive discussions” with Iran and would not attack before the 3 November midterm elections. He spoke after media reports that he was weighing a strike before then. PVM Oil Associates analyst Tamas Varga said Trump’s pledge and China’s resumption of fuel product exports were weighing on the market.
The selling faded as the hurricane moved towards the northern Gulf of Mexico. Producers had shut in about 1.3 million barrels a day, or 62.9 per cent of current Gulf output, by Thursday, according to the US Marine Minerals Administration. Sources told Reuters the figure had passed 70 per cent by Friday. Operators had evacuated 121 of the Gulf’s 371 manned platforms by Thursday, and any storm damage would keep that oil offline for longer than routine safety checks.
The Friday settlement followed a 4.1 per cent jump on Thursday, when Brent closed at US$104.28. That rally came as Iran stepped up attacks on tankers in the Strait of Hormuz, Houthi fighters fired ballistic missiles at the Saudi capital Riyadh, and an adviser to Iran’s supreme leader said the strait would stay closed until outstanding issues were resolved.
Before the war, about a fifth of the world’s oil and fuel passed through the strait. Iran’s Tasnim news agency reported that Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi was reviewing a US response to Tehran’s proposal to reopen the waterway within seven days, with a reply expected within days.
Washington has kept up economic pressure regardless. It is maintaining a naval blockade of Iranian ports and has imposed new sanctions on individuals, networks and 17 vessels accused of carrying Iranian crude, fuel and petrochemicals.
Trump told reporters in September that oil prices were unlikely to fall until after the midterms. The conflict, now in its eighth month, pushed Brent back above US$100 on 9 September for the first time since July.
Traders now await Tehran’s reply on the Hormuz proposal and the Marine Minerals Administration’s damage assessments once Isaias makes landfall.
