Flooding Knocks Out U.S. Refineries, Crude Hit By Supply Disruptions

Flooding from tropical storm Harvey caused ongoing large-scale U.S. refinery outages on Tuesday, while crude prices rose on the back of supply disruptions in Colombia and Libya. Refinery shutdowns from the storm helped push U.S. gasoline prices to 2015 highs of $1.7799 per gallon on Monday, although they receded slightly to $1.7320 per gallon by 0138 GMT on Tuesday. U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures rose 23 cents, or 0.5 percent, to $46.80 a barrel, after falling more than 2 percent in the previous session.

On international oil markets, Brent crude futures were up 20 cents or 0.4 percent, at $52.09 per barrel. Massive floods caused by Harvey forced several refineries to close along the U.S. Gulf Coast, while heavy rains were spreading into the greater Houston area, which has already been hit by catastrophic flooding.

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