Oil prices fall as Dean avoids oilfields

Oil prices continued to drop this morning as Hurricane Dean – now a Category Three storm – held a course that will avoid most of Mexico’s production fields. Petroleos Mexicanos (Pemex) has shut down its 537 platforms in the Bay of Campeche and evacuated some 19,000 workers, but it now appears that the hurricane will miss most of the facilities as it moves from the Yucatan Peninsula to the Mexican mainland near Tampico later today. Dean came ashore as a Category Five hurricane on the Yucatan near Costa Maya overnight with 270km/hr winds. These have now diminished to just over 200km/hr as the storm churns over land. While damage to maritime interests in Mexico has yet to be tallied, the energy market breathed a sigh of relief this morning on news that Dean would miss Mexico’s oil fields, sending September crude oil prices down 86 cents to $70.96 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Meanwhile, Nymex natural gas futures for September delivery fell 97 cents to $6.040 per million BTU, while gasoline for September delivery on the same exchange fell 11 cents to $1.9275 a gallon.