Ike still affecting cost of gas as it jumps again

Meanwhile, two weeks after Hurricane Gustav shut down production and closed a dozen refineries in Louisiana, those same companies were sending out crews Sunday to assess damage. The upper Texas coast is home to about one-fifth of the nation’s petroleum refining capacity, and any prolonged disruption could severely crimp gasoline supplies.

However, because of ongoing damage assessments and uncertainty about how long it will take to get power restored, refiners were unable to say when they’d be able to resume production of gasoline and other fuels.

The Gulf also accounts for 25 percent of domestic oil production and 15 percent of natural gas output. That production was nearly 100 percent shut down Sunday, though Shell and some other producers had begun restaffing platforms and other offshore facilities that were not in Ike’s path.

More than half of Texas’ 28 refineries have been shut down because of Ike.

Valero Energy Corp., North America’s largest refiner, said crews had found no significant structural damage at facilities in Houston, Texas City and Port Arthur.

Video   Ike spike: Gas prices rise since storm’s landfall Sept. 14: Since Hurricane Ike made landfall, the average price for a gallon of gas has risen 12 cents, to $3.80. CNBC’s Scott Cohn reports. Nightly News

The company said it had no timetable for when production would resume.

“Gulf Coast pipelines that carry crude oil and refined products to other parts of the country are also experiencing outages, which will further complicate the supply situation,” Valero said.

Transocean Inc., the world’s largest offshore drilling contractor, said Sunday that Ike moved one of its three moored, semisubmersible rigs in the Gulf about 2 miles to the north of its pre-storm location, and crews were trying to determine if it sustained any significant damage.

Another of the rigs, which was damaged during Gustav, kept its location, while the third was docked in Mobile, Ala., out of the storm’s path, said spokesman Guy Cantwell.

The Department of Energy said Sunday it had agreed to deliver 200,000 barrels of emergency exchange oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to ConocoPhillips’ Wood River refinery in Roxana, Ill.

The department said it also will deliver an additional 109,000 barrels of emergency exchange oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to Placid Oil’s Port Allen, La., refinery along a Shell pipeline in Louisiana.

The oil was requested by ConocoPhillips and Placid because of supply disruptions. The deliveries were to begin Sunday.

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