Storm worsens gas problems

Hurricane Katrina slammed into wallets across the country Monday as the storm closed nearly all operations in the energy-rich Gulf of Mexico.

That drove up the wholesale price of gasoline and kicked up retail gas prices as much as 50 cents a gallon in areas hit by Katrina. It’s expected to pump up already high retail gas prices all across the country as soon as today. It also pushed up the price of natural gas, used for heating and to generate electricity, and of heating oil, used widely for winter heat in the Northeast.
In short, the hurricane threatens to bite deeply into the heating, cooling and driving budgets of all Americans at a time those budgets already are stretched by rising energy prices.

Katrina also is expected to create at least brief shortages of fuel in some areas, and not just near the Gulf of Mexico. Refiners in the Midwest already have trimmed production for lack of crude oil from their usual gulf suppliers, according to a bulletin from Oil Price Information Service consultants.

USA Today