By Gina Lee

Investing.com – Oil was flat on Friday morning in Asia, after Hurricane Laura roared through Louisiana and Texas without causing any apparent major damage to the states’ oil infrastructure.

was flat at $45.60 by 10:27 PM ET (3:27 AM GMT) and inched down 0.09% to $43, giving up some Laura-related gains as producers calculate the damage and the shuttered infrastructure slowly reopens.

“Unless there is any lasting damage to oil production infrastructure, it would not be a surprise to see oil trade down a bit after the storm as damage assessment continues,” AxiCorp market strategist Stephen Innes said in a note.

As Laura made landfall on Thursday with 150-mile-per hour winds, the weaker-than-predicted storm surge spared the Gulf of Mexico’s rigs and refineries from the anticipated damage. More than 80% of the region’s production, as well as 15% of U.S. processing capacity, was shut down in preparation for Laura’s arrival, leading to an uptick in oil and gasoline prices earlier in the week.

The Port of Houston, a major U.S. crude oil export hub accounting for around 600,000 barrels per day (bpd) of shipments, was re-opened as of Friday. A Kpler estimate said that seaborne crude export capacity could be reduced by nearly 1 million bpd due to the earlier closures of Houston, Beaumont and Arthur ports.

Meanwhile, investors will now refocus their attention to COVID-19, and its impact on fuel demand recovery. But the pace of recovery remains slow, with diesel sales in the U.K. still at around 11% below pre-lockdown levels and half of India’s trucking fleet still grounded.