As Hurricane Rita tears through the Gulf of Mexico, prices on the New York Mercantile Exchange rose. A barrel of light crude rose by over $4, breaking the record for the biggest one day increase in history, before OPEC agreed to release more barrels. OPEC will now make available an extra 2m barrels per day to the world market. The problem in the US is a lack of refineries to transform the oil into usable products like gasoline and heating fuel. Only 46% of oil production in the Gulf has resumed. Since Katrina, the US has lost 5% of the annual production of oil from the Gulf of Mexico: around 547m bbls of oil. Only 66% of the natural gas production in the Gulf has resumed, meaning heating fuel could be in short supply this winter. Source:
http://www.time.com
