Crude oil futures finished higher on Tuesday as the latest OPEC monthly report revealed a decrease in production last month, according to Bloomberg MarketWatch.
October West Texas Intermediate crude oil gained 16 cents, or 0.3%, to settle at $48.23 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
On the ICE Futures Europe Exchange, November Brent crude, the global benchmark, added 43 cents, or 0.8%, to end trading at $54.27 a barrel.
In a monthly report released Tuesday, OPEC indicated that August output fell by 79,000 barrels a day to 32.76 million.
Production had been on the rise over the summer, raising concerns that OPEC’s production cut deal wasn’t working. Saudi Arabia has been debating whether to extend the cartel’s agreement after it expires next March.
The Energy Information Administration said in its monthly report that domestic crude output in the Gulf of Mexico is estimated to have fallen by 70,000 barrels a day to 1.6 million barrels in August from a month earlier due to disruptions caused by Hurricane Harvey. The EIA also reduced its expectations for 2017 and 2018 total U.S. crude oil production.
Several refineries along the Gulf Coast were knocked offline by the hurricane, prompting a significant rise in crude stockpiles for the week ending September 1, according to EIA data.
The EIA will issue an update for the week ending September 8 on Wednesday morning. The American Petroleum Institute will release its weekly inventory report late Tuesday. Analysts polled by S&P Global Platts expect the EIA to report a climb of 10.1 million barrels in crude supplies.
October natural gas rose 5.1 cents, or 1.7%, to settle at $3.001 per million British thermal units on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
Gulf Coast oil refineries that suffered damage from Hurricane Harvey are gradually returning to full capacity. Hurricane Irma, which made landfall in Florida over the weekend, turned out to be less damaging to the energy industry than expected, resulting in higher future prices on Monday.
