TOKYO: Oil prices rose for a second day on Wednesday, gaining more than 2%, as a hurricane closed U.S. offshore oil and gas production and an industry report showed U.S. crude inventories decreased.
Brent crude rose 85 cents, or 2.1%, to $41.38 a barrel by 0645 GMT, while U.S. crude rose 92 cents, or 2.4%, to $39.20. Both contracts rose by more than 2% on Tuesday.
More than 25% of U.S. offshore oil and gas output was shut and export ports were closed on Tuesday as Hurricane Sally sat just off the U.S. Gulf Coast.
"Our current estimate for the total outage associated with the Sally weather system is between 3 million and 6 million barrels of oil over approximately 11 days," Rystad Energy said in a note.
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