Oil prices calm despite hurricane

Petroleos Mexicanos has evacuated its Gulf of Mexico facilities

Global oil prices have fallen in Tuesday trading on relief that Hurricane Dean is likely to miss key US platforms in the Gulf of Mexico.

The storm is on target to hit Mexico, but the International Energy Agency said any damage to Mexican rigs should not effect the global oil market.

US light, sweet crude settled $1.65 lower at $69.47 while Brent fell $1.16 to $68.69.

Mexican energy firms have shut down all production in the Gulf of Mexico.

As soon as the market realized that there would not be any damage, correction has continued Olivier Jakob Petromatrix

This has resulted in a loss of production of 2.7 million barrels of oil, and 2.6 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day.

The main state-owned Petroleos Mexicanos said it had evacuated more than 18,000 workers.

President Felipe Calderon said the output would be offline until Friday.

"As soon as the market realized that there would not be any damage, correction has continued," said Olivier Jakob of Petromatrix.

The US government said it was prepared to make emergency withdrawals from the nation's Strategic Petroleum Reserve to offset any loss from Mexico, which supplies 13% of US imports.