Hurricane Ivan tore up oil pipes in Gulf of Mex. - 6 mo. to fix

[donsu]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=568&ncid=749&e=3&u=/nm/20041026/bs_nm/markets_oil_dc

Oil Ends Above $55 on Winter Supply Fears

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Last month's Hurricane Ivan continues to curtail Gulf of Mexico production, where more than 400,000 bpd remains shut in six weeks after the storm.

The outage has impeded the seasonal stockbuild of winter fuels, with U.S. heating oil inventories lingering 12 percent below last year's level and inventories in big consumers Germany and Japan also lagging.

Stockpiles of middle distillates, which include heating oil and jet fuel, are expected to have fallen in the U.S. for a sixth consecutive week in government data due to be released on Wednesday.

Supplies should be building to prepare for the spike in winter demand, which will depend largely on the timing and severity of cold weather in the heavy consuming U.S. Northeast.

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read another article this a.m. that said Ivan caused underseas mudslides that tossed the pipes around like toothpicks. can't find the article which was about mercury in tuna and it also talked about the Gulf of Mex. oil rigs (which produce mercury)