US oil finishes higher than Iran, hurricane Florence is on rising prices for the week

Oil futures finished higher on Friday as the US benchmark leveraging its gains for the week as the US would have increased pressure on countries to comply with upcoming sanctions on Iranian oil.

Traders have also continued to monitor the impact of Hurricane Florence on the energy market and have been considering new US tariffs on Chinese products, which could hurt demand for oil.

October futures on West Texas Intermediate crude

CLV8, + 0.57%

The US benchmark rose 40 cents, or 0.6%, to $ 68.99 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract remains below the $ 70.37 mark, hit earlier this week, the highest since July 20, according to Dow Jones Market Data. The contract recorded a weekly gain of 1.8%.

November Brent

LCOX8, -0.10%

The United States lost 9 cents, or 0.1%, to $ 78.09 per barrel on ICE Futures Europe, under pressure from the China-China trade dispute and a report indicating that global stocks of crude reached a record in August. World reference prices reached their highest level since the beginning of May and recorded a weekly gain of about 1.6%.

Manisha Singh, deputy secretary of state for economic and commercial affairs, said at a hearing on Thursday that the country is ready to take "the strongest measure" against countries that do not respect Iran's sanctions, including reducing zero Iranian oil purchases. a report.

Oil traders are worried about the Trump administration's goal of zero Iranian oil exports, said Phil Flynn, Senior Market Analyst at Price Futures Group.

Separate reports said Friday that President Donald Trump still wants to impose new tariffs on China despite recent attempts to resume talks between the United States and China, the world's second largest oil consumer.

Trump is arguing for more tariffs in China because he thinks it will push China to the fore, Flynn said.

And as for Florence, we know that there will be demand destruction in the short term, but an increase in demand in a few weeks when [the region] begins to rebuild, "he said.

The Gulf of Mexico must be watched because Isaac, currently a tropical depression, could be a problem next week for energy operations in the Gulf, said Flynn. Isaac is expected to cross the Eastern and Central Caribbean Sea in the coming days.

Hurricane Florence was brought back to the Category 1 storm while it was hitting the Carolinas on Friday. According to the National Hurricane Center, Florence was to cause catastrophic floods in parts of North Carolina and South Carolina.

The storm is likely to disrupt fuel flow in major pipelines in the region.

"The Northeast is heavily dependent on the Colonial Pipeline and the Plantation Pipeline for the supply of refined products, both of which run through the Carolinas," a report released Friday morning by S & P Global Platts said.

Both pipelines were operating normally on Thursday, he said. "No US oil or refinery or onshore refinery is currently on the way to Florence," they added.

GasBuddy, tracking fuel prices, said more than half of the gas stations in Wilmington, North Carolina, were out of fuel.

Lily: Hurricane Florence causes fuel shortages, but gas prices will not rise sharply

On Nymex, the essence of October

RBV8, -0.97%

fell by 1.1% to $ 1.97 per gallon, trading little change for the week, while heating oil in October

HOV8, -0.67%

lost 0.6% to $ 2,209 per gallon, a weekly decrease of 0.4%.

October natural gas

NGV18, -1.70%

lost 1.8% to 2.767 dollars per million British thermal power stations – down 0.3% over the week.

According to the S & P Global Platts report, demand for natural gas is expected to "cross the storm's path, largely because of lower electricity consumption due to cuts and lower temperatures."

On Thursday, WTI and Brent crude prices suffered their largest percentage of losses in about a month, with the International Energy Agency stating that daily oil production from oil-exporting countries was increasing and that Global supplies reached 100 million barrels a day in August.

"Logistical constraints on the growth of US production and lingering concerns about the impact of US sanctions on Iranian exports mean that we have slightly revised our price forecasts," said Caroline Bain, Chief Economist, Commodities at Capital Economics. It set the price of Brent at $ 70 per barrel at the end of 2018 and $ 60 at the end of 2019, up from the previous forecast of $ 65 and $ 55 respectively.

Baker Hughes Weekly Data

BHGE, -2.23%

revealed that the number of oil rigs in the United States, a key measure of activity in the sector, increased from 7 to 867 this week.

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