Crude, refined products climb as market eyes storm-battered USGC infrastructure

Crude and refined product futures settled higher Aug. 30 as the market assessed the impacts of Hurricane Ida on US Gulf Coast energy infrastructure.

NYMEX October WTI settled 47 cents higher at $69.21/b and ICE October Brent rallied 71 cents to settle at $73.41/b.

The bulk of US Gulf of Mexico crude production remained offline Aug. 30, as for many companies it may take time to assess damage from Ida, which made landfall southwest of New Orleans Aug. 29 as a Category 4 storm, packing winds of 150 mph and gusts even higher.

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On Aug. 30, 1.72 million b/d of the Gulf's crude oil production, or 94.6% of the region's roughly 1.8 million b/d, remained shut in. That compared with nearly 95.7% a day earlier, the US Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement said in its daily update.

NYMEX September RBOB settled up 3.85 cents at $2.3127/gal and September ULSD climbed 3.11 cents to $2.1403/gal.

Refineries clustered around the city of New Orleans, Louisiana, were taking stock and assessing the impact Hurricane Ida had on their plants and surrounding infrastructure, with nearly 75% of Louisiana refining capacity offline as of Aug. 30.

According to estimates from S&P Global Platts Analytics, about 2.2 million b/d of refining capacity was offline from the storm as of Aug. 30, with the majority of plants without power from outside supplier Entergy.

Colonial Pipeline started the damage assessment process early Aug. 30 after Hurricane Ida swept through Louisiana, and will then set a timeline for restarting the nation's primary fuel artery for much of the Southeast and the East Coast.

Colonial Pipeline said Aug. 29 that it had temporarily shut down its Lines 1 and 2 systems from Houston to Greensboro, North Carolina. Colonial's Lines 3 and 4 from North Carolina to New Jersey never ceased operations. The pipeline is a key artery supplying the US South and East Coast with refined products and its closure threatens to stress already-tight regional gasoline stocks, which stood nearly 13% behind the five-year average in the week ended Aug. 20.

The ICE New York Harbor RBOB crack versus Brent climbed to $17.25/b in afternoon trading, up from an Aug. 27 close of $16.32/b.