2018.10.0915:44:00UTC+00Oil Settles Higher Ahead Of Inventory Data

Crude oil prices moved up on Tuesday amid reports about falling crude exports from Iran ahead of the U.S. sanctions against the country.

According to reports from Refinitiv Eikon, crude exports from Iran dropped to 1.1 million barrels per day in the first week of October, from 1.6 million barrels per day in September. In April, Iran's crude exports stood at about 2.5 million barrels per day.

Another reason for crude's uptick was the news that Hurricane Michael will make landfall along the Gulf Coast by Wednesday, as a category 3 storm.

The National Hurricane Center's bulletin said the center of Michael will continue to move over the southern Gulf of Mexico and then move across the eastern Gulf of Mexico later on Tuesday. Following the hurricane warning, offshore producers including Anadarko Petroleum Corp, BHP Billiton, BP and Chevron Corp have reportedly evacuated workers from 13 oil and gas platforms in the Gulf.

Crude oil futures for November delivery ended up $0.67, or 0.9%, at $74.96 a barrel. On Monday, crude oil futures declined to a low of $73.08 a barrel before recovering to close at $74.29 a barrel, losing 5 cents.

While some reports say Hurricane Michael could hit Panhandle, a 200-mile strip on northwest Florida, which has the state's largest crude and natural gas fields, a report from Reuters suggested the hurricane's track would largely avoid major oil-producing assets in the Gulf, although a change in that path could widen its impact.

Meanwhile, Investors were looking ahead to the weekly oil report from the American Petroleum Institute, due later in the day, and the official inventory data from the Energy Information Administration, due on Wednesday.