The price of U.S. crude oil increases by over 1% due to Francine's disruption of production in the Gulf of Mexico.

• Up to 1.5 million barrels of U.S. crude production may have been disrupted by Francine, according to UBS estimates.

On Thursday, U.S. crude oil surged over 1% to trade above $68 per barrel, following Hurricane Francine's path through the Gulf of Mexico and its impact on oil production before it reached Louisiana's shore.

In the previous session, oil futures increased by more than 2% due to the threat of the storm on supplies. However, Francine has since been downgraded to a tropical storm.

According to Giovanni Staunovo, an analyst at UBS, Hurricane Francine has likely disrupted approximately 1.5 million barrels of US oil production, resulting in a reduction of about 50,000 barrels per day in September production in the Gulf of Mexico.

Here are Thursday's energy prices:

• U.S. crude oil has risen by 1.22% to $68.13 per barrel in October, despite a year-to-date decline of 4.9%.
• The November contract price for oil is $71.38 per barrel, which represents a 77 cent increase, or 1.1%, compared to the year-to-date global benchmark drop of approximately 7%.
• The price of gasoline in October was $1.9122 per gallon, which represents an increase of 0.8%. Despite this, gasoline prices have decreased by almost 9% year to date.
• The price per thousand cubic feet for gas in October remains unchanged at $2.27. Year to date, there has been a decrease of approximately 9.7% in gas usage.

After prices closed at their lowest level since December 2021 on Tuesday, the quick rebound on the storm came as traders regained confidence in OPEC's ability to maintain compliance with production cuts at lower price levels, according to Staunovo.

At least in the short term, UBS anticipates that oil prices will increase.

As supply lags demand growth and low speculative positioning is expected, Staunovo maintains a positive outlook for Brent crude oil, predicting that it will rise above USD 80/bbl in the coming months.