Oil,
gas prices jump
Trinidad Guardian
Port Spain
Petroleumworldtt.com
08 18 07
As
Prime Minister Patrick Manning put the final
touches on the 2008 budget, the hurricane caused
oil and gas prices to jump on the possibility
that energy
production could be curtailed in the Gulf of Mexico, which produces roughly
25 per cent of the United States’ oil and 15 per cent of its natural
gas.
Light, sweet crude for September delivery rose
98 cents to settle at $71.98 a barrel on the New
York Mercantile Exchange, while Nymex natural gas
futures gained 13.5 cents to settle at US$7.01
per 1,000 cubic feet.
The massive storm is now on course for a direct
hit on Jamaica and the tourist-heavy tip of the
Yucatan peninsula.
Jamaican Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller
held an emergency meeting of the disaster preparedness
committee yesterday to prepare for the hurricane,
which could disrupt general elections scheduled
for August 27.
On St Lucia, the storm washed boulders from the
sea onto downtown streets and knocked down trees.
The power company shut off electricity across
the island to prevent people from being electrocuted
by wires broken by falling trees and power poles.
“I did not sleep at all last night and was
a little worried that the roof of my house would
be blown off with all that wind. Thank God it did
not,” Gwenie Moses said yesterday as she
checked her small tin-roofed house in Dominica’s
capital, Roseau.
Trinidad
Guardian
Saturday
18th August, 2007
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©2007 Trinidad Guardian. All Rights Reserved.
