Crude prices settle above 80 dollars a barrel for the first time Thursday as Hurricane Humberto hit Texas.
Crude oil futures touched 80 dollars a barrel for the first time Wednesday on shrinking U.S. inventories and storm concerns.
On Thursday, light, sweet crude for October delivery settled at a record 80.09, up 18 cents on the New York Mercantile Exchange, topped its previous record close set a day earlier of 79.91 dollars.
Storm concerns
Hurricane Humberto, the first hurricane to hit the United States in two years, sneaked up on southeast Texas overnight and crashed ashore Thursday with heavy rains and winds, killing at least one person.
Some refineries included Valero Energy Corp.'s facility, Total SA's plant and Motiva Enterprises LLC's refinery, were effected due to the storm.
Exxon Mobil Corp. said its 350,000 barrel-per-day Beaumont, Texas, refinery suffered a minor production outage but remained up and running.
Traders were also concerned about the Atlantic storm, which the National Hurricane Center is calling Tropical Depression Eight.
The storm formed Wednesday far in the open Atlantic, about 1, 130 miles east of the Lesser Antilles. It had maximum sustained winds near 35 mph and was moving west-northwest at about 12 mph.
Shrinking U.S. inventories
Crude prices have surged Wednesday as the Energy Information Administration reported a huge draw on the nation's crude inventories.
Crude stockpiles sank by 7.1 million barrels last week, while gasoline inventories fell by 700,000 barrels. Analysts surveyed by Dow Jones Newswires had expected crude oil inventories fell 2.7 million barrels while gasoline inventories fell 500,000 barrels last week.
Crude imports fell by 674,000 barrels a day on average last week to 9.56 million barrels, while gasoline imports fell an average of 298,000 barrels a day to 1.02 million barrels a day.
Demand for gasoline averaged about 9.6 million barrels a day over the last four weeks, about 0.9 percent above last year.
In addition to closing at a record high, the October oil contract also set an intraday record of 80.20 dollars a barrel on Thursday, 2 cents above the previous high set on Wednesday.
October gasoline rose 3.04 cents to settle at 2.0464 dollars a gallon.
Source: Xinhua
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