Washington, DC, September 26, 2005--Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan told Russian finance minister Alexei Kudrin that risks to the oil market from a pair of U.S. hurricanes have peaked, and pressure on refineries should ease, the Russian minister said on Sunday.
Kudrin said Greenspan, in bilateral talks on the sidelines of semi-annual meetings of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, did not say outright that he expected oil prices to drop, but signaled the worst of the squeeze might be over.
"Greenspan believes that now we've overcome all the peaks of the risks of those storms ... (and) Katrina and Rita have exhausted their influence on the oil market already," he told a small group of reporters through a translator.
Oil prices fell about $1 a barrel on Sunday after Hurricane Rita, the second major storm to hit the U.S. Gulf Coast in a month, did less damage to oil refineries than first feared.
Markets had fretted the storm would bring prolonged energy shortages and compound the damage from Hurricane Katrina, which pushed oil prices to a record $71 a barrel in August.
Greenspan, in his discussions with Kudrin, said he thought the situation at U.S. refineries "is going to be easier" now that the storms have passed.
