The prices of petrol on Sunday surpassed five dollars a gallon in some parts of the country after Hurricane Ike paralyzed refineries and pipelines, while that destroyed at least 10 extraction platforms in the Gulf of Mexico.
Quite beyond the areas directly hit by winds and flooding, Ike left behind a strange pattern of prices at the pump, with differences of up to a dollar a gallon in some states, and even in different sectors of cities.
"I just spend three gas stations with prices iban from about 3.50 U.S. dollars up (see other) to five U.S. dollars located very near there," said Claire Raines, who lives near Knoxville, you have.
The average price exceeded four dollars per gallon in Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, South Carolina, Hawaii and Alaska, according to the National Association of Motorists, the information service on Oil Prices and the company Wright Express.
The states receiving gasoline directly from the refineries located along the Gulf of Mexico coast were particularly affected, and supplies could be sporadic over the next several weeks that refineries will be inactive, said Tom Kloza, principal analyst of oil Information services on Oil Prices.
A gas station in Knoxville, you have requested 5.19 dollars per gallon of regular gasoline. In Nashville, about 290 kilometers (180 miles) away, petrol was sold at 3.50.
The Ike seems to have destroyed a number of production platforms and damaged several of pipelines in the Gulf of Mexico, federal authorities reported on Sunday.
The overflights carried out revealed that the storm destroyed at least 10 extraction platforms, said Lars Herbst, regional director of the Federal Minerals Management (MMS, for its acronym in English).
"It is too early to say whether approaches the damage caused (by hurricanes) Katrina and Rita," said Herbst.
The MMS said that Hurricane Katrina destroyed 44 platforms three years ago, and shortly after Rita finished with 64.
Herbst emphasized that assessments are preliminary, but the damage appears to be much worse than that caused by Hurricane Gustav two weeks ago. For the time being unaware data on the size and production capacity of the platforms destroyed.
Herbst said that aerial inspections showed that Ike affected several major pipelines, but it is unknown how serious the injury was, nor whether they were oil or natural gas.
