Oil prices rose Wednesday as traders weighed fresh Houthi attacks in Saudi Arabia and storm-related U.S. Gulf production shut-ins against recovering Middle East crude supplies. December Brent crude futures rose 1% to $101.54 a barrel, while December West Texas Intermediate futures gained 1% to $89.31 a barrel. Saudi Arabia’s General Authority of Civil Aviation said Tuesday that King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz International Airport in Jazan and Najran International Airport were damaged in attacks, with three people wounded.
Early Wednesday, a Houthi missile targeting an area north of Riyadh was intercepted and destroyed, according to Saudi-led coalition spokesman Turki al-Maliki. An attack also targeted Aden International Airport in Yemen, where authorities said two Houthi missiles struck the civilian facility without causing injuries, The Wall Street Journal reported. The Saudi-led coalition separately said Tuesday that it destroyed a ballistic-missile launch platform in Sana’a and a storage facility at a mountainous site in Saada containing 20 ballistic missiles, according to the Saudi Press Agency.
Shipping risks around the Strait of Hormuz also remain elevated. An attack Tuesday wounded 12 mariners aboard the Panama-flagged commercial vessel MT On Peace, including 11 Indian nationals, India’s foreign ministry said. Outside the Middle East, a developing storm has also curtailed some U.S. Gulf oil output.
The U.S. Marine Minerals Administration said 185,120 barrels a day of offshore crude production, or 9.2% of Gulf output, had been shut in as of Tuesday morning as operators prepared for the storm. No production platforms or drilling rigs had been evacuated at that point. Still, regional oil supplies have continued to recover.
The U.S. Energy Information Administration said Tuesday that Middle East oil exports increased in September from August despite continued attacks, while crude-production shut-ins fell to an average 4.8 million barrels a day from 5.8 million barrels a day in August and 10.9 million barrels a day at their May peak. The EIA raised its fourth-quarter Brent forecast to an average $105 a barrel, $14 above its previous forecast, saying Middle East export constraints, high transportation costs and declining inventories should keep prices elevated. It estimates global oil inventories fell by 1.9 million barrels a day in the third quarter and expects a further 700,000-barrel-a-day decline this quarter.
Source: Wall Street Journal US Business · Summarized by HeadlinesBriefing