Crude falls as Hurricane Beryl fears fade

By Erwin Seba

HOUSTON (Reuters) - Brent and U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude closed down on Tuesday as fears of supply disruptions caused by Hurricane Beryl faded throughout the day on Tuesday.

Brent crude futures settled down 36 cents, or 0.42%, at $86.24 a barrel. U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude settled at $82.81 a barrel, down 57 cents or 0.68%.

Earlier on Monday, WTI rose $1 to $84.38 a barrel on fears Beryl might have a wider impact in offshore oil production areas in the U.S.-regulated northern Gulf of Mexico as U.S. demand for motor fuels is increasing.

Both benchmarks gained about 2% in the previous session.

But as new forecasts emerged on Monday, traders were less fearful of supply problems, said Phil Flynn, analyst with the Price Futures Group.

"Markets came to the realization that Beryl is not going to shut down any major amounts of offshore oil production," Flynn said. "We may see some shut, but its going to have a minimal impact on platforms."

Hurricane Beryl is a dangerous Category 5 hurricane tearing through the Caribbean Sea. It is expected to have weakened into a tropical storm by the time it enters the Gulf of Mexico late this week, according to the U.S. National Hurricane Center.

"We dodged a bullet on Beryl," said John Kilduff, partner with Again Capital LLC. "But, there definitely is an understanding that any storm that develops in the Gulf is going to be a big one."

U.S. gasoline demand is expected to peak this week with travel for the Independence Day holiday on Thursday. American Automobile Association has forecast that travel during the holiday period will be 5.2% higher than in 2023, with car travel up 4.8%.

(Reporting by Erwin Seba in Houston; Additonal reporting by Arunima Kumar in Bengaluru, Mohi Narayan in New Delhi and Colleen Howe in Beijing; Editing by David Evans, David Holmes and Deepa Babington)