Hurricane Ike Threatens Heart of U.S. Oil Industry

Refinery outages could put a squeeze on gasoline, diesel and other refined petroleum products. While crude oil prices have been sinking steadily, gasoline prices have popped up on concerns of shortages. By 1 p.m. today, gasoline prices on the New York Mercantile Exchange had jumped 12 cents in less than two days. Ahm said that crude oil prices were likely to remain stable or continue declining because there appeared to be some excess global oil production and Saudi Arabia indicated that it might not abide by the OPEC call for members to stick to their quotas. - Washington Post

clipped from afp.google.com HOUSTON, Texas (AFP) — A strengthening Hurricane Ike Friday bore down on Houston Friday, forcing hundreds of thousands to flee and sparking a dire warning that those remaining in low-lying areas "face certain death." "All neighborhoods and possibly entire coastal communities will be inundated during the period of peak storm tide," the National Hurricane Center said, referring to land along the Galveston Bay. clipped from www.washingtonpost.com The heart of the U.S. oil industry lies exposed to a crippling storm for the second time in two weeks as Hurricane Ike bears down on the Houston area and the Gulf of Mexico. Once again the nation's energy security is being threatened by the weather rather than the geopolitical factors. Strategists usually focus on the U.S. reliance on imports of foreign oil, but lately the greater fear has been for the nation's own supplies and their vulnerability to Mother Nature. "Ike couldn't have come at a worse time," said Daniel Ahm, an energy economist at Lehman Brothers.