Ike poses threat to U.S. refineries

HOUSTON, Sept. 12 (UPI) -- Hurricane Ike's trek toward the Houston area Friday poses the second hurricane threat in two weeks to the U.S. oil industry, analysts said.

Companies evacuated offshore production platforms and drilling rigs in the Gulf of Mexico, and shut down refineries that account for 19 percent of the nation's oil refining capacity, The Washington Post reported. About 40 percent of the nation's oil refining capacity lies along the coast, with about 23 percent of it along the Texas coast alone.

For most of the two weeks since Hurricane Gustav, more than 90 percent of the gulf's production has been sealed off, knocking out about a quarter of the country's total oil production, the Post reported.

"Ike couldn't have come at a worse time," said Daniel Ahm, an energy economist at Lehman Brothers. "Gustav had already ripped through with surprisingly little damage, but it is reminiscent of what happened with (hurricanes) Rita and Katrina."

Rita, the first of those 2005 storms, caused relatively little damage, he said. Katrina caused more, in part because it "was inflicted on already weakened infrastructure," Ahm said.