Oil Prices Vulnerable as Hurricane Season Nears

HOUSTON, May 12 (Reuters) – Worldwide oil supplies may be even more vulnerable to disruption as the 2006 hurricane season approaches than they were before Katrina and Rita shut down nearly 25 percent of U.S. oil and gas production and 15 refineries in coastal states last year.

“We’re still living in a disrupted world,” said Guy Caruso, administrator of the U.S. Energy Information Administration, at a recent Houston energy conference.

“We have 300,000 barrels of oil shut in the Gulf of Mexico,” Caruso said. “There are problems in Nigeria, Chad, Iraq remains below its prewar levels.”
Reuters