SINGAPORE, Sept 7 (Reuters) - Oil extended losses on
Tuesday as the dollar strengthened and Tropical Storm Hermine
showed no signs of disrupting crude or refining output around
the Gulf of Mexico.
FUNDAMENTALS
* U.S. crude for October <CLc1> tumbled as much as 1.2
percent to $73.73 and was down 75 cents at $73.85 a barrel at
0055 GMT, extending losses in a three-day session that will
include trades logged on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday because of
the U.S. Labor Day holiday.
* The New York Mercantile Exchange, home to West Texas
Intermediate (WTI) crude futures, will issue just one
settlement for those three days.
* ICE Brent for October <LCOc1> slid 29 cents to $76.58 on
Tuesday, reflecting a smaller drop than WTI, partly because of
the continuous NYMEX session. The front-month contract added 14
cents on Monday as the balance between supply and demand
tightened in the North Sea physical market.
* Tropical Storm Hermine formed early on Monday and was
churning toward landfall, potentially as a hurricane, near the
Mexico-Texas border, according to the U.S. National Hurricane
Center.
* BP Plc <BP.L><BP.N>, the largest oil producer in
U.S.-regulated areas of the Gulf of Mexico, and Shell Oil Co
<RDSa.L> said late Monday that Hermine was not affecting their
offshore operations. []
* Valero Energy Corp <VLO.N> said production at its
315,000-barrel-per-day (bpd) Corpus Christi, Texas, refinery
was at planned levels, but the plant was preparing for possible
rough weather from the storm.
* Pemex, Mexico's state-run oil company, said there were no
reports of damage to its facilities in or near the Gulf of
Mexico after Hermine moved north from the oil-rich Bay of
Campeche.
* The Gulf is home to about 30 percent of U.S. oil
production, 11 percent of the country's natural gas output and
more than 43 percent of U.S. refinery capacity.
* In the Atlantic, the remnants of Tropical Storm Gaston
continued to move westward and had a high chance of reforming
as a tropical cyclone during the next 48 hours, according to
the NHC. Storm models predicted Gaston would move west towards
Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic and Haiti, but it was still
too early to determine whether it would enter the Gulf.
MARKETS NEWS
* The dollar gained more than 0.4 percent against a basket
of currencies <.DXY>
* Japan's Nikkei average fell 0.8 percent on Tuesday,
dented by profit-taking after four straight days of large gains
and as the yen's strength showed little sign of abating. []
DATA/EVENTS
* The following data is expected on Tuesday:
- U.S. employment index for August; 1400 GMT
RELATED NEWS
* The Russian oil industry's key growth area, the Arctic
Yamal Nenets region, is getting closer to a pipeline link-up
with Asia and the Pacific, the largest growth market for the
country's abundant energy resources. []
(Reporting by Alejandro Barbajosa; Editing by Manash Goswami)
