Oil Goes Up! $70/barrel mark!
Posted in General Interest, Political on 08/29/2005 11:10 am by adminBusiness News
Crude oil tops $70 per barrel
By UPI
Aug 29, 2005, 19:00 GMT
LONDON, England (UPI) — Crude oil prices Monday hit another nominal high as Hurricane Katrina forced the closure of nearly half of all Gulf of Mexico oil and natural gas output.
High-quality crude for October delivery on the New York Mercantile Exchange hit $70.80 per barrel before falling to $69.25, still a $3.12-per-gallon rise, the Financial Times reported.
Gulf oil producers have shut 633,000 barrels per day of production capacity, 42 percent of the total in the region that produces about a quarter of U.S. production capacity.
Seven oil refineries were pulled out of production in Louisiana as Katrina crashed onto shore south of New Orleans. Those refineries have a combined daily refining capacity of 1.449 million barrels per day — about 8.5 percent of U.S. capacity.
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08/30/2005 at 11:17 pm
Before striking the Gulf Coast, Katrina last week hit southern Florida and killed seven people.
It knocked out electricity to about 2.3 million customers, or nearly 5 million people, in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida, utility companies said. Restoring power could take weeks, they warned.
The storm swept through oil and gas fields in the Gulf of Mexico, source of 20 percent to 25 percent of U.S. production of the commodities. U.S. oil prices on Tuesday jumped $3.65 a barrel to peak at $70.85 as oil firms assessed damage.
Reuters:
http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=topNews&storyID=2005-08-31T013552Z_01_ROB586049_RTRUKOC_0_UK-WEATHER-KATRINA.xml