World oil traded below $100 in Asia on Sept. 15 after early assessments showed the damage to U.S. oil platforms by Hurricane Ike was not as bad as first feared, analysts said.
U.S. officials said on Sept. 14 that Ike, which slammed the U.S. Gulf Coast on Sept. 13, damaged about 10 oil platforms in the Gulf of Mexico where major energy installations are located. "The initial perception is that there hasn't been much structural damage to oil and refinery infrastructure," said David Moore, a Sydney-based commodity strategist with the Commonwealth Bank of Australia.
New York's main contract, light sweet crude for October delivery, was at $99.14 a barrel. It closed at $101.18 on Sept. 12 and had reached as low as $98.51 on Sept.14 when the New York Mercantile Exchange held a special trading session due to Hurricane Ike.
Brent North Sea crude for October delivery was down $1.83 from Sept. 12's close to $95.75.
Prices were also capped by jitters over the state of the global financial system after battered Wall Street titan Lehman Brothers announced on Sept. 15 it would file for bankruptcy.
Copyright Agence France-Presse, 2008
