Commodities: NYMEX gasoline on a tear as traders take stock of Harvey
Updated : 18:49
Energy futures are racing higher across the board as markets continued to take stock of the situation on the US Gulf coast in the wake of hurricane Harvey, especially after the storm made landfall the day before near the Louisiana border forcing Motiva's refinery at Port Arthur - the country's largest - offline.
Front month gasoline futures in the States rocketed 11.90% to $2.1090 a gallon on NYMEX, dragging the entire complex higher with them amid analyst talk about the increasing global importance of US supplies in recent years due to the 'shale revolution' and the lifting on restrictions of American exports of oil products.
In tandem with the move in gasoline, WTI futures for delivery in October were ahead by 2.83% to $47.26 a barrel on NYMEX, alongside gains of 3.10% to $3.30/MMBtu for natural gas futures while heating oil was up by 4.64% to $1.7515 a gallon.
Approximately 23% of America's refining capacity was estimated to have been taken offline or roughly 4.25m barrels-worth.
According to analysts at Citi, in 2005, when hurricane Katrina hit in 2005, America's gross exports of crude and petroleum products (including NGLs) were running at some 1.165m barrels a day. Last year, they were at 5.188m on average - and rising.
Over the past three months, combined sales abroad of products and crude had jumped to 6.031m b/d, Citi said.
Higher quotes for energy futures fed into soft commodities, as they account for a large of the cost of producing some of them on account of fertilisers and transportation.
Thus, December 2017 corn futures on the Chicago Board of Trade were higher by 2.68% at $3.5475 a bushel, although similarly-dated wheat contracts were rising by a tamer 1.11% to $4.3450 a bushel.
Nonetheless, some of the refineries located in southern Texas, where Harvey initially came aground on 25 August, were reportedly already making plans to restart.
As of 1805 BST, Bloomberg's commodity index was flying higher, gaining 1.76% to 84.54, even as the US dollar spot index drifted lower by 0.03% to 92.86.