RE:Trifecta of global economic troubleDonwan...
A few thoughts..
I think the article statements regarding the hurricane are bit overplayed. There are hurricanes every year and the market generally holds a discount of about 10% in terms of lost production due to them. So unless there is a particularly devastating hurricane, other than pehaps a one or day wonder to shake a few trees for weak holders, there isn't likely to be much of a reaction in the oil markets.
In terms of world energy demand, that is a potential concern since Germany (and the EU for that matter) was technically in a slight recession last year and predictions are for essentially zero growth this year. China is definately slowing but it is really hard to gauge what is going on since most of the numbers coming out of China are "cooked" IMO.
All of this may account for the OPEC recent decision regarding production as the Brent price is clearly lower than the Saudi total production cost taking into the cost of their social programs to keep the House of Saud in power.
Soooo...on balance IMO economic activity is the driver not concerns regarding climate change and hurricanes in the Gulf.