Ike Forces Shutdown of 19% of U.S. Refining Capacity

At least 13 refineries in Texas including plants operated by Exxon Mobil Corp., Valero Energy Corp. and Royal Dutch Shell Plc shut 3.64 million barrels a day of refining capacity as Ike approached Texas. Exxon and Shell said today they would begin assessing damage of Gulf facilities as soon as weather permitted.

``If these refinery outages go three weeks or more, most of the nation could see $4 gasoline again,'' Bruce Bullock, director of the Maguire Energy Institute at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, said in an telephone interview with Bloomberg. ``If they are back up in a week, it may be a 15- or 20-cent-a-gallon increase.''

-EPJ Newsdesk