Oil supply concerns arising from damage to facilities in the U.S. Gulf from Hurricane Isaac proved unfounded and depressed prices, said Sanjeev Gupta, who heads the Asia-Pacific oil and gas practice at Ernst and Young.
"Most of the production facilities were shut down in advance of the storm, but early reports indicated fairly limited supply disruptions, thus taking some of the pressure off prices," he told AFP.
The Gulf of Mexico is the hub of U.S. offshore energy production, accounting for 23% of crude oil output and 7% for natural gas.
The Gulf coast's facilities also have more than 40% of total U.S. petroleum refining capacity and 30% of natural gas processing plant capacity.
As of Wednesday evening, approximately 1.3 million barrels of oil production and 3.2 million cubic feet of gas per day were shut-in in U.S. federal waters due to the approaching hurricane, IHS reported.
As total of 50 U.S. Gulf of Mexico offshore drilling rigs in federal waters, accounting for 66% of Gulf rigs, and 505 production platforms in federal waters were shut in, IHS reported.
Numerous onshore chemical and refining facilities also shut down operations.
Copyright Agence France-Presse, 2012
IndustryWeek contributed to this report using IHS statistics.
