September 01, 2017, 09:21 / Finance / News

Brent is trading at $52.7 per barrel

By 9.15 Moscow time on September 1, November Brent futures were trading in London at $52.7 per barrel, October WTI futures in New York were at $46.94 per barrel. During Thursday's trading, Brent rose by $2.13 (4.20%) to $52.86 per barrel, WTI - by $1.27 (2.76%) to $47.23 per barrel, recalls Interfax . The quotes were supported by the assumption that refineries are willing to pay for oil due to the high profitability of oil refining, explained Phil Flynn, senior market analyst at Price Futures Group.

Nearly a third of US refineries are closed or have reduced capacity due to the effects of Hurricane Harvey, which led to an increase in quotations for gasoline futures in the country by almost 14% to $2.15 per gallon (3.79 liters). According to Interfax, 29 tankers from Latin America, Africa and the Middle East are already waiting to unload off the US coast in the Gulf of Mexico: 11 Texas ports are still closed to oil tankers after the hurricane. According to Bloomberg, the cargo volume is about 18.6 million barrels of oil.

At the same time, due to infrastructure disruptions, oil supplies to refineries outside Texas are limited. On Wednesday, the US Department of Energy announced it would release a total of 1 million barrels of oil from its strategic reserve to help address the gasoline shortage.

Despite strong growth in the last session of August, for the entire month Brent fell by 0.5% and WTI by 5.9%.