LONDON (AFP) — Oil prices on Friday rebounded from six-month lows as Hurricane Ike forced the closure of energy production facilities in the Gulf of Mexico, traders said.
New York's main contract, light sweet crude for delivery in October, climbed 1.80 dollars to 102.67 dollars a barrel.
Brent North Sea crude for October gained 1.69 dollars to 99.33 dollars in London.
"Ike could develop into a Category 3 storm, threatening to disrupt more production from refineries along the Gulf of Mexico coast," said oil analyst Andrey Kryuchenkov at the Sucden brokerage in London.
Hurricane Ike on Friday bore down on Houston, the fourth largest US city, sending hundreds of thousands of people fleeing amid a warning that those remaining in low-lying areas "face certain death."
Oil and natural gas production in the Gulf of Mexico was largely closed, though the US Department of Energy (DoE) said Ike appeared likely to spare most rigs and platforms there.
"Some 95.9 percent of the Gulf of Mexico's 1.3 million barrels per day of oil production and 73.1 percent of its 7.4 billion cubic feet per day of natural gas production has been turned off," the department said in a statement issued Thursday.
The bulk of US oil refineries are in the gulf, where Anglo-Dutch oil giant Shell began evacuating personnel on Wednesday.
Crude futures were also higher after Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez on Thursday threatened to halt the supply of oil to the United States, its main client, if Washington showed "aggression" towards Venezuela.
The threat came after Chavez announced that US ambassador to Venezuela Patrick Duddy had 72 hours to leave the country.
"If there is any aggression towards Venezuela" from Washington, "there would be no oil for the people of the United States," Chavez said at a public event near Caracas.
Venezuela's order to expel Duddy was an act of "solidarity" with Bolivia, which expelled its US envoy Philip Goldberg on Wednesday after accusing him of encouraging a break-up of Bolivia through support of opposition groups.
Deadly clashes in Bolivia Thursday stoked fears of further widespread unrest and possibly even civil war.
At least eight people were killed and a dozen wounded in violent clashes between pro- and anti-government protesters in the northeastern town of Cobija, officials said.
Oil prices had tumbled to six-month lows under 97 dollars a barrel on Thursday as the dollar rallied and demand worries temporarily outweighed concerns over Ike.
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