While many are watching its impact on the Republican National Convention and Gulf Coast communities, others are worried about Isaac’s impact at the pump.
The tropical storm is already having an effect on oil prices, causing futures to rise more than a dollar over fears of supply disruption once the storm makes landfall somewhere between Florida and Louisiana by midweek. Brent crude futures climbed $1.26 to $114.85 a barrel on fears that U.S. offshore oil production could be disrupted, and ahead of an annual meeting of central bankers and economists, where another round of quantitative easing is up for discussion.
Reuters notes that “The Gulf of Mexico accounts for about 23 percent of U.S. oil production and 7 percent of natural gas output.” That doesn’t bode well for the national economy in the short term, but hey—let’s remember as we’re digging for change in the center console—it could always be worse.
