Wednesday, June 25, 1986 : Petroleum Futures Prices Up

The winds of hurricane Bonnie were felt on the floor of the New York Mercantile Exchange Wednesday as traders attributed rising petroleum futures prices to storm fears that were closing down Gulf Coast refineries.

With the hurricane bearing down on Texas and Louisiana, oil companies Wednesday already were evacuating some of their rigs.

But higher prices were held in check by the American Petroleum Institute’s weekly inventory report and lack of an agreement by OPEC members on ways to combat the general oil-market slump, said Peter C. Beutel, a petroleum analyst in New York with Rudolf Wolff.

He said that while the API report released late Tuesday was better than expected, “It was not too far out of line to generate much buying interest.”

Ministers from the 13-nation Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries met formally Wednesday in Yugoslavia but reached no decisions on how to stabilize world oil prices.

Crude oil settled 34 cents to 38 cents higher, with the contract for delivery in August at $13.26 a barrel and heating oil was 0.31 cent to 0.82 cent higher, with July at 37.51 cents a gallon.