Ike spikes Texas gas to highest wholesale price ever

NVDL: It's crazy - oil prices are down and gas prices are up.

clipped from news.yahoo.com NEW YORK - Gasoline prices jumped to unprecedented levels in the wholesale markets Thursday as Hurricane Ike tore across the Gulf of Mexico, threatening to strike Texas and its refineries. "It's a strange, strange world here," Kloza said. "You might see an extraordinary thing — you may see crude oil less than $100 and retail gasoline more than $4 a gallon." Some forecasters predict it will strengthen from a Category 2 storm, with winds near 100 mph, to a Category 4. Ike ripped through Cuba and killed at least 80 people in the Caribbean. Texas is home to 26 refineries that account for one-fourth of U.S. refining capacity. Most are clustered along the Gulf Coast near such cities as Houston, Port Arthur and Corpus Christi. Exxon Mobil Corp.'s plant in Baytown, outside Houston, is the nation's largest refinery. "People understand that regardless of what happens with Ike, it's going to shut down the biggest refining cluster for a period of five, six, seven days."