Oil, Gasoline Rise as Platforms in Path of Hurricane Rita Shut

…”Rita is developing into our worst-case scenario,”‘ said John Kilduff, vice president of risk management at Fimat USA in New York. “This is headed right into our other major refining center just after all the damage done to facilities in Louisiana. From an energy perspective it doesn’t get any worse than this.’”

…”This has the potential to be a real powerful storm, and after the damage caused by Katrina nobody’s taking any chances,” said Justin Fohsz, a broker at Starsupply Petroleum Inc. in Englewood, New Jersey. “There are a lot of refineries in Texas. Even if it misses the offshore platforms there will be disruptions due to the evacuations.”

Rita today strengthened to a Category 4 storm over the Gulf, matching the strength of Katrina when it made landfall. Katrina shut 95 percent of offshore production in the region, closed eight refineries and slowed operations at about 10 others. Four plants in Louisiana and Mississippi remain shut, keeping more than 5 percent of U.S. refining capacity offline.

“Hurricane paths are like spinning the bottle, you don’t know where they’re going to hit until about three hours from landfall,” said Matthew Simmons, chief executive of Simmons & Co., a private investment bank in Houston for the oil and gas industry. “Anything south of Corpus Christi and we’re fine. It could be Pearl Harbor.”

Bloomberg