WTI drops $1 after hitting new high

West Texas Intermediate crude oil for October delivery set a new high price of $80.36 per barrel during trade on Friday, but by the close of floor trade on the New York Mercantile Exchange it had dropped $1 from Thursday’s close to $79.09 per barrel.

November contracts for Brent crude were also lower, falling 87 cents to $76.25 per barrel on the Intercontinental Exchange in London.

Among the factors influencing the day’s price fluctuations were reports of work to restart the Texas refineries that were forced offline by power outages cause by Hurricane Humberto earlier in the week, along with continued attention to Tropical Storm Ingrid, which is currently in the Atlantic Ocean and not expected to make landfall.

Also in the mix was analyst opinion that the production increase announced by OPEC and to take effect on 1 November is too little to make any significant difference to tight oil supplies.

Nymex October gasoline was 2 cents lower to $2.03 per gallon, while October heating oil dropped 1 cent to $2.21 per gallon.

November natural gas was 18 cents higher to $7.06 per million British thermal units.