The price of crude oil was moving higher Friday morning as a tropical storm curbing supply in the Gulf of Mexico. Energy companies shutting in production as Tropical Storm Karen headed towards the gulf basin, supply disruptions supported prices.
Light Sweet Crude Oil (WTI) futures for November delivery, added $0.32 to $103.63 a barrel. Yesterday, oil settled lower on mixed macroeconomic data with activity in the U.S. service sector declining and uncertainty related to the partial government shutdown. Investors continued to worry over crude oil demand growth prospects on some soft macroeconomic data from the U.S., even as the partial shutdown entered a third day with lawmakers failing to reach a consensus on the budget.
This morning the U.S. dollar was was lingering around its nine-month low versus the euro and sterling, while trading around its monthly low against the yen and extending losses versus the Swiss franc.
In economic news from the euro zone, Germany's producer prices declined in August, data released by the Federal Statistical Office showed. The producer price index fell 0.5 percent year-on-year in August following a flat reading in July. On a monthly basis, the PPI fell 0.1 percent. Economists expected prices to remained unchanged on both counts.
Euro zone industrial producer prices dropped 0.8 percent in August from a year ago, largely due to a sharp fall in energy prices, Eurostat reported. Economists had forecast producer prices to fall 0.5 percent after staying flat in July.
