The National Hurricane Center in the United States predicts that Tropical Storm Francine may strengthen into a Category 2 hurricane and make landfall in central Louisiana on Wednesday night local time. Data from Bloomberg shows that dozens of offshore oil platforms and inland refineries are in an uncertain range before the hurricane makes landfall.

Earlier, several oil and gas companies recalled workers from offshore platforms. Chevron, ExxonMobil, Shell, and others are taking measures to evacuate workers from vulnerable facilities, suspend drilling activities, and shut down some oil wells. According to Bloomberg's calculations based on government data, the predicted path of the storm will affect oil fields that produce approximately 0.125 million barrels of crude oil and 300 million cubic feet of natural gas per day. In the expected path, Francine may impact nine major production platforms, including Enchilada, Cerveza, Perdido, and Hoover.

Enki Research, which tracks tropical activity and predicts disasters, wrote on Twitter that the impact of the storm on Louisiana's oil and gas infrastructure will be "short-term".

On Monday, WTI crude oil futures halted their consecutive decline and found support around $68 per barrel, influenced by the potential storm impact. The threat of the tropical storm to offshore oil platforms in the Gulf of Mexico and inland refineries supported WTI crude oil prices throughout Monday.

In recent weeks, Goldman Sachs' commodities analyst Daan Struyven has lowered his expected range for Brent crude oil prices by $5 to $70 to $85 per barrel, citing weakening demand, high inventories, and rising U.S. shale oil production.

Morgan Stanley has also recently lowered its oil price forecast, reflecting expectations of increased supply from OPEC and non-OPEC oil-producing countries amid signs of weak global demand. The bank currently expects that although the crude oil market will remain tight in the third quarter, it will stabilize in the fourth quarter and could shift to oversupply by 2025. Morgan Stanley has lowered its fourth-quarter oil price expectation from $85 per barrel to $80, and currently expects oil prices to gradually decline to $75 per barrel by the end of 2025, slightly lower than the previous estimate of $76 per barrel.

All of this is not new to the market, and market sentiment is extremely pessimistic. Fund managers' bullishness on crude oil has dropped to the lowest level in over 13 years.

At an important oil conference held in Asia on Monday, top traders issued a cautious warning. Trafigura Group said that the price of Brent crude oil could soon fall into the $60 range, while Gunvor Group Ltd. believes there is an oversupply.

Jeff Currie, Chief Energy Strategist at Carlyle Group, stated in an interview with Bloomberg Television: "In terms of oil, the physical fundamentals are still intact and inventory is decreasing. However, the financial market is looking ahead to the future rather than the present."

However, if a tropical system were to accelerate in the Gulf of Mexico and destroy some refineries, it could easily drive up energy prices. This would cause gasoline prices to soar again, putting the Harris team in a difficult position before the November election.