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SINGAPORE — Oil prices fell Tuesday in Asia on expectations Tropical Storm Dolly won’t disrupt oil operations in the Gulf of Mexico.

Royal Dutch Shell, Europe’s biggest oil company, said Monday it was evacuating workers from oil rigs in the western part of the Gulf but didn’t expect its production to be affected by the storm.

“The market doesn’t see Dolly as a real threat at this point,” said Victor Shum, an energy analyst with consulting firm Purvin & Gertz Inc. in Singapore. “It doesn’t look like it will have much of an impact.”

Midday in Singapore, light, sweet crude for August delivery was down 39 cents at US$130.65 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract rose US$2.16 to settle at US$131.04 a barrel overnight.

Possible future storms, tensions over Iran’s nuclear program and growing demand for crude in developing countries should continue to underpin oil prices, which have risen about 74 percent in the past year, Shum said.

“There’s been no slowdown in Chinese demand growth, and the Iran situation remains fluid,” Shum said. “We’ve had a correction, but I expect a resurgence in prices in the near-term.”

In the past six trading sessions, crude prices have fallen from a trading record of US$147.27 hit on July 11.

Talks among Iran, Washington and five other world powers ended Saturday with Iran rejecting calls to freeze uranium enrichment. In response, the six gave Iran two weeks to respond to their demand, setting the stage for a new round of UN sanctions.

Tropical Storm Dolly was expected to bring high winds and dump 10 to 20 inches (25 to 50 centimeters) of rain in coastal areas near the US-Mexican border. Forecasters at the National Hurricane Center in Miami, Florida, say it is likely Dolly will become a hurricane, but they do not expect it to become a major hurricane.

At 0300 GMT, Dolly was located about 435 miles (700 kilometers) southeast of Corpus Christ, Texas, and had maximum sustained winds near 50 mph (80 kph).

In other Nymex trade, heating oil futures were up 0.41 cent at US$3.752 a gallon (3.8 liters) while gasoline prices fell 0.67 cent to US$3.2104 a gallon. Natural gas futures fell 6.7 cents to US$10.443 per 1,000 cubic feet.

In London, September Brent fell 52 cent to US$132.09 a barrel on the ICE Futures exchange. (AP)

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