Crude Oil Rises as Storm Edouard Strengthens in Gulf of Mexico

By Gavin Evans and Catherine Yang

Aug. 4 (Bloomberg) -- Crude oil rose for a second day as a storm threatened U.S. output in the Gulf of Mexico, and Israeli and U.S. officials sought additional sanctions against Iran.

Tropical Storm Edouard lies about 90 miles (145 kilometers) southeast of the Mississippi River mouth and may strengthen to a hurricane as it heads west toward Texas, the National Hurricane Center said. Oil rose from an 11-week low last week as U.S. fuel stockpiles fell and Iran ignored a deadline in its dispute with the United Nations over its nuclear research.

``Those wildcat factors'' are holding up prices today, Gavin Wendt, senior resources analyst at Fat Prophets Funds Management in Sydney, said in a Bloomberg Television interview. ``Prices should be a lot stronger than they were a week ago,'' given the risks from the storm and Iran, he said.

Crude oil for September delivery rose as much as $1.21, or 1 percent, to $126.31 a barrel in after-hours electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange and traded at $125.93 at 9:15 a.m. in Singapore.

The contract gained 0.8 percent on Aug. 1 on speculation the odds of a military strike against nuclear research facilities in Iran, the world's fourth-largest oil producer, were increasing.

Iran didn't respond by an Aug. 2 deadline to an offer from the U.S., Russia, China, France, the U.K. and Germany of economic and diplomatic incentives in exchange for the suspension of its uranium-enrichment program.

Extra sanctions are needed, Tzipi Livni, Israel's foreign minister, said yesterday on CNN's ``Late Edition'' program.

Brent, Edouard

Brent crude oil for September settlement climbed as much as $1.12, or 0.9 percent, to $125.30 a barrel on London's ICE Futures Europe exchange, and traded at $125 at 9:09 a.m. in Singapore.

Tropical storm Edouard, with maximum wind speeds of 50 miles an hour, is likely to strengthen as it moves west parallel to the Louisiana coast before making land on the upper Texas coast Aug. 5, the Miami-based hurricane center said at 7 p.m. local time. There is a 24 percent chance it will strengthen to a hurricane, with winds of more than 74 miles an hour, before striking land.

``Keep a close eye on the storm,'' Rebecca Waddington, a meteorologist with the center, said in an interview. ``The industry knows better than we do how to safeguard their installations. I'd advise them to act early.''

New York oil futures have slipped more than $21 a barrel, or 14 percent, from the record $147.27 on July 11 as U.S. gasoline demand slowed, and a firming of the dollar reduced the attraction of commodities as an investment.

Speculators

Hedge fund managers and other large speculators last week reduced their bets on falling prices, according to Commodity Futures Trading Commission data.

Net-short positions, the difference between orders to buy and sell the commodity, fell to 660 contracts at July 29, 82 percent less than a week earlier.

While the U.S. economy may be heading toward recession, demand in India and China remains strong and global production is straining to keep up, Fat Prophets' Wendt said. He expects oil to reach $175 a barrel before the end of the year.

An Institute for Supply Management report tomorrow will probably show U.S. service industries shrank for a second month in July, based on a Bloomberg survey of economists. Futures trading on the Chicago Board of Trade suggests less than a 7 percent chance the U.S. Federal Reserve will raise interest rates after it meets the same day.

``It's likely that we're going to see further weakness in the dollar,'' Wendt said. ``We can't see it bouncing back and sustaining any gains so we're looking towards further increases in the price of crude oil.''

To contact the reporters on this story: Gavin Evans in Wellington at gavinevans@bloomberg.net; Catherine Yang in Hong Kong at cyyang@bloomberg.net