Oil prices dive as Gustav passes

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The biggest repercussions from Hurricane Gustav’s brush with the Gulf Coast oil complex played out in energy markets Tuesday instead of at refineries and oil rigs, as reports trickled in that damage to key facilities was mostly minor and oil prices plunged below $110 a barrel in response, report Elizabeth Douglass and Ronald D. White.

Teams of oil industry and government employees fanned out across the region, inspecting shut-down refineries responsible for more than 10% of the nation’s gasoline production and boarding helicopters and planes to fly over oil platforms that account for 25% of U.S. oil output.

‘The good note is that we have not gotten any reports of major damage at this point,’ said John Rodi, deputy director of the Gulf of Mexico region of the U.S. Minerals Management Service. He added that more thorough inspections would take several days, ‘after which we’ll have a really definitive idea of what’s damaged and what’s not damaged.’

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