Financial Times: Oil prices rise over warnings of fresh hurricane: “ChevronTexaco and Royal Dutch Shell, along with Trans-Ocean, the largest offshore oil and natural gas drilling company, all said they were evacuating rigs and platforms.”: Tuesday 20 Sept 2005

By Sheila McNulty in Houston, Carola Hoyos in Vienna and Kevin,Morrison in London

Published: September 20 2005

Oil futures notched up their biggest one-day rise yesterday as another tropical storm threatened the Texas oil coast weeks after Hurricane Katrina damaged oil installations.

The possibility of tropical storm Rita growing into a hurricane and hitting Texas on Friday pushed the US benchmark, WTI crude, up $4.60 to an intraday high of $67.60 before last trading at $67.39, a rise of 7 per cent. Gasoline futures traded up 14 per cent or 25.27 cents at $2.0427 a gallon. IPE November Brent, the European oil benchmark, climbed $3.80 to $65.61.

The rise in oil prices hit US stocks, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average falling 85 points, or 0.8 per cent, to a provisional close of 10,557.

ChevronTexaco and Royal Dutch Shell, along with Trans-Ocean, the largest offshore oil and natural gas drilling company, all said they were evacuating rigs and platforms. BP said it was evacuating facilities in the Gulf of Mexico. Murphy Oil said it had shut down almost 100,000 barrels a day of output.

The Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries met in Vienna yesterday but was powerless to help. Members promised to supply the market with all their remaining spare oil - about 1.5m barrels a day. But the gesture did not cut prices because Opec's additional oil is not the type the market needs, traders said. The US national hurricane centre is forecasting a category three hurricane but did not rule out a category four. Hurricane Ivan last year was a category three and Katrina a category five.

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