MOSCOW (MRC) -- Oil rose on Monday, supported by concerns over shut output in the United States because of damage from Hurricane Ida, with analysts expecting prices to remain rangebound in a stable market over the coming months, said Hydrocarbonproceesing.
Brent crude rose 55 cents, or 0.8%, to USD73.47 a barrel by 1222 GMT and U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude was up 64 cents, or 0.9%, at USD70.36. Brent has held between USD70 and USD74 a barrel over the past three weeks.
"Oil prices may not have much room to rise in the near term, but at the same time are not expected to crash soon," said Stephen Brennock of broker PVM. A U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) last week said it expected Brent prices to remain near current levels for the remainder of 2021, averaging USD71 a barrel during the fourth quarter.
"Markets still need clarity on the virus impacts beyond the very near term; and until we get that, it seems like most assets, including oil, may continue to drift sideways," said Howie Lee, an economist at Singapore's OCBC bank. The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) on Monday trimmed its world oil demand forecast for the last quarter of 2021, citing the Delta coronavirus variant and saying a further recovery would be partially delayed until next year.
The producer group said in a monthly report that it expects oil demand to average 99.7 million barrels per day (bpd) in the fourth quarter of 2021, down 110,000 bpd from last month's forecast. Prices still found some support from Hurricane Ida's impact on U.S. output. About three quarters of the offshore oil production in the Gulf of Mexico, or about 1.4 million bpd, has remained halted since late August.
"Hurricane Ida was unique in having a net bullish impact on U.S. and global oil balances - with the impact on demand smaller than on production," Goldman Sachs analysts said in a note dated Sept. 9. Further disruption from bad weather could be around the corner, with tropical storm Nicholas in the Gulf of Mexico and expected to strengthen into a hurricane in the coming days, the U.S. National Hurricane Center (NHC) said.
However, the number of rigs in operation in the United States grew in the latest week, energy service provider Baker Hughes said, indicating production could rise in coming weeks.
Supply risks remain from China's planned release of oil from strategic reserves while the hope of fresh talks on a wider nuclear deal between Iran and the West was raised after the U.N. atomic watchdog reached an agreement with Iran on Sunday about the overdue servicing of monitoring equipment to keep it running. China on Monday said it will announce details of planned crude oil sales from strategic reserves in due course.
As per MRC, most of the nine Louisiana refineries shut by Hurricane Ida have restarted or were restarting, nearly two weeks after the powerful storm came ashore, a Reuters survey showed. Refiners are coming back faster than oil production, a reverse of past storm recoveries. Just three of the nine refineries were completely idled, accounting for about 7% of Gulf Coast refining, compared to shut-ins of two-thirds of oil output.
As MRC informed earlier, Royal Dutch Shell Plc, one of the largest operators in the Gulf of Mexico, declared force majeure on some oil deliveries due to damage from Hurricane Ida, which has crippled U.S. offshore oil production. More than three-quarters of the U.S. Gulf of Mexico's offshore oil output remained shut following Ida. Crude buyers said the full restart of production remained unclear due to extensive damage to various facilities. The hurricane was one of the most devastating for offshore producers since back-to-back storms in 2005 cut output for months.
Ethylene and propylene are the main feedstocks for the production of polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP), respectively.
According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated PE consumption totalled 1,176,860 tonnes in the first half of 2021, up by 5% year on year. Shipments of exclusively low density polyethylene (LDPE) decreased. At the same time, PP shipments to the Russian market were 727,160 tonnes in the first six months of 2021, up by 31% year on year. Supply of homopolymer PP and block-copolymers of propylene (PP block copolymers) increased. Supply of statistical copolymers of propylene (PP random copolymers) subsided.
MRC