NEW YORK, Oct. 12 (Xinhua) -- Oil prices sank on Monday as supply risks in Norway and the Gulf of Mexico evaporated.
The West Texas Intermediate (WTI) for November delivery lost 1.17 U.S. dollars to settle at 39.43 dollars a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, while Brent crude for December delivery decreased 1.13 dollars to 41.72 dollars a barrel on the London ICE Futures Exchange.
"The two reasons on the supply side that drove prices up by 9 percent last week have disappeared," Carsten Fritsch, energy analyst at Commerzbank Research, said in a note on Monday, referring to supply outages in Norway caused by a strike and the hurricane-forced production disruptions in the Gulf of Mexico.
Friday saw oil producers in Norway agree with oil union officials on a new wage deal, bringing the ten-day strike in the oil industry to an end.
"If the talks had failed, the strike could have brought a quarter of Norway's oil and gas production to a standstill," Fritsch noted.
Meanwhile, energy production is being gradually restored in the Gulf of Mexico after Hurricane Delta made landfall on Friday.
More than 90 percent of oil production and roughly 62 percent of natural gas production had previously been shut down in the Gulf of Mexico due to the hurricane.
For the week ending Friday, the front-month contract for WTI gained 9.6 percent, while Brent crude rose 9.1 percent. Enditem
