Harvey to push gas prices higher through Labor Day weekend

Traders were also scrambling to redirect fuel to the United States. "There are some refineries in that Gulf Coast region that supply all the way up to the Midwest". "Production will come back faster than refining so it is just going to exacerbate the situation where there's too much oil".

An adviser to President Donald Trump told a White House briefing that more oil could be sprung from the SPR.

The U.S. Commerce Department reported Wednesday that real GDP increased at an annual rate of 3 percent during the second quarter, the strongest growth in more than two years.

Tom Kloza, chief oil analyst for the Oil Price Information Service, said to CNN: 'There's a worry now that most of the Texas refineries could be compromised for weeks rather than days'.

Other Port Arthur refineries also shut overnight, including Total's plant, where sources familiar with operations said they expected water to recede by the weekend. He said the many uncertainties about the extent of damage will make economic estimates "volatile" for the last six months of this year.

There was a record 17.73mn bpd of crude entering refineries according tp the latest data, although this amount will decline sharply in the short term. The margin was less than $6.50 on Monday.

On Wednesday, oil prices fell despite a weekly drop in closely watched USA commercial crude stocks of 5.39 million barrels.

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Hurricane Harvey, which brought record flooding to the US oil heartland of Texas and killed at least 35 people, has paralyzed at least 4.4 million barrels per day (bpd) of refining capacity, according to company reports and Reuters estimates. At least 4.4 million barrels per day (bpd) of refining capacity was offline, or nearly a quarter of total USA capacity, based on company reports and Reuters estimates. A combined 23 percent of American capacity is at least partially offline.

The average gas price in Dallas on Thursday was $2.41 a gallon, with prices expected to rise, according to Gas Buddy.

The U.S. relies on fewer facilities, run closer to their physical limits, to turn that crude into fuel and get it to consumers.

Flooding is "now the greatest threat" to U.S. Gulf Coast energy infrastructure, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. analysts including Damien Courvalin said in an emailed report on Wednesday.

"Certainly the spread widening out between WTI/Brent is Harvey-driven". The cost of damages will roll over to insurance companies.

"These closures are already impacting markets, with crude prices lower on a perceived drop in demand and gasoline prices spiking in response to lower supply", said Sandy Fielden, director of oil and products research at Morningstar. Worse, refined product output in Latin America has fallen recently, with Mexico and Venezuela most vulnerable to supply outages in Texas.