Investing.com - Oil prices remained under pressure on Monday, as investors continued to take into account the consequences of Hurricane Harvey for the U.S. oil industry.
Hurricane Harvey came ashore over the weekend as the most powerful hurricane to hit Texas in more than 50 years, killing at least two people, causing large-scale flooding, and forcing the closure of Houston port as well as several refineries.
The U.S. National Hurricane Center (NHC) said on Monday that Harvey was moving away from the coast but was expected to linger close to the shore through Tuesday, and that floods would spread from Texas eastward to Louisiana.
Texas is home to 5.6 million barrels of refining capacity per day, and Louisiana has 3.3 million barrels. Over 2 million barrels per day (bpd) of refining capacity were estimated to be offline as a result of the storm.
About 22%, or 379,000 bpd, of Gulf production was idled due to the storm as of Sunday afternoon, according to the U.S. Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement. There may also be around 300,000 bpd of onshore U.S. production shut in, trading sources said.
The U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude September contract was at $47.56 a barrel by 09:00 a.m. ET (13:00 GMT), down around 31 cents or 0.65%.
Elsewhere, Brent oil for October delivery on the ICE Futures Exchange in London rose 15 cents or 0.29%, to $52.12 a barrel.
The commodity has been under pressure in recent weeks as concerns over rising U.S. shale output overshadowed production cuts by OPEC and non-OPEC members.
OPEC and 10 producers outside the cartel, including Russia, agreed since the start of the year to slash 1.8 million barrels per day in supply until March 2018 in order to reduce a global supply glut and rebalance the market.
So far, the deal has had little impact on global inventory levels due to rising supply from producers not participating in the accord, such as Libya and Nigeria, as well as a relentless increase in U.S. shale output.
Elsewhere on Nymex, gasoline futures for October advanced 3.75% to $1.601 a gallon. It climbed 7% earlier in the day to hit its highest since July 2015 at $1.618.
October heating oil gained 1.88%, to $1.655 a gallon.