Oil prices fell on Friday as a massive storm raced inland past the heart of the U.S. oil industry in Louisiana and Texas without causing any widespread damage to refineries.
U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude CLc1 futures were down 3 cents, or 0.1%, to $43.01 a barrel as of 0409 GMT, as reported by Reuters.
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Brent crude LCOc1 futures for October, set to expire on Friday, rose 2 cents to $45.11 a barrel, heading for a 1.7% weekly gain. The more active November contract LCOc2 climbed 3 cents to $45.63.
Hurricane Laura hit Louisiana early Thursday with winds of 150 miles per hour (240 km per hour), damaging buildings, knocking down trees and cutting power to more than 650,000 people in Louisiana and Texas, but refineries were spared from feared massive flooding.
But investors are shifting their concerns from production outages to demand destruction, analysts said.
