Oil Near Four-Week High on Storm, Signs OPEC Will Freeze Supply

(Bloomberg) — Crude oil traded near a four-week high in New York as a hurricane headed toward the Gulf of Mexico and OPEC ministers said the group wouldn’t increase production.

The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries will maintain existing targets when it meets Sept. 11, the Algerian and Qatari oil ministers said. Hurricane Felix is on a westerly path that could reach Mexico’s Cantarell, the world’s third-largest oil field, by the end of the week.

…Felix has become a “dangerous” storm with 165-mile-per-hour winds, making it a Category 5 hurricane, the highest and most dangerous rank on the Saffir-Simpson scale, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said. It was centered about 490 miles (790 kilometers) east of Cabo Gracias a Dios on the Honduras-Nicaragua border. The system was heading west at 21 miles per hour.

“It’s a very strong hurricane, but the track is still uncertain,” said Olivier Jakob, managing director at Petromatrix GmbH in Zug, Switzerland. “It is still too early to have full confidence that it will track to the Mexican Bay of Campeche oil fields.”

Bloomberg