Hurricane Ike strengthens on path to Gulf of Mexico

09 September 2008 11:51  [Source: ICIS news]

LONDON (ICIS news)--Hurricane Ike was sweeping across Cuba on Tuesday and is expected to strengthen as it moves towards Gulf of Mexico oil and gas installations.

Ike, which has killed at least four people in Cuba, had maximum sustained winds of 80 miles/hour at 05:00 eastern time (09:00 GMT), said the National Hurricane Center.

Ike is currently a category 1 hurricane, the centre said, adding that additional strengthening was forecast to occur when it reaches the Gulf of Mexico on Wednesday.

Crude fell by more than $2/bbl on Tuesday despite fears that Ike may cause disruption to production on market talk that OPEC, meeting later in the day for its summit in Vienna, would not make any significant cuts to production levels.

At 10:30 GMT, October Brent was trading at around $102.25 having hit a low of $101.27/bbl, a loss of $2.17 from the Monday close of $103.44.

As of 11:30 Houston time on Monday, oil and gas operators had evacuated personnel from 200 out of 717 production platforms in the Gulf, according to the Minerals Management Service (MMS), with 79.4% of crude oil production and 64.2% of natural gas production shut in.

The US Coast Guard ordered all vessels out of the Inner Harbor Navigational Canal (IHNC) in New Orleans in anticipation of Hurricane Ike’s possible landfall in the region, a Coast Guard official said.

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By: Hilde Ovrebekk
+44 20 8652 3214

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