Forecasters urged the oil industry this summer to stockpile supplies away from the US Gulf Coast, which they predict will be hit by hurricane-force winds, potentially sending sky-high gas prices even higher, according to hazard models released recently.

“It is almost certain there is going to be significant production disruption in the Gulf of Mexico this year. That's not good,” said storm tracker Chuck Watson.
“We’re really urging the oil industry to keep the stocks outside the Southeast as high as you can because otherwise you risk disrupting the whole country if there is a storm impact.”
Energy companies struggled for months to restore operations after hurricanes pummeled oil and natural gas platforms and shut coastal refineries in the Gulf of Mexico 2005.
US gasoline prices are already at record levels this year.
Much of the Atlantic and Gulf coastlines face “substantially higher than normal risks” for a hurricane strike in 2007 as a result of continuing warm ocean temperatures and expected La Nina conditions, Watson and fellow storm tracker Mark Johnson said in their forecast.
Watson, founder of Kinetic Analysis Corp of Silver Spring, Maryland, and Johnson, statistics professor at the University of Central Florida, collaborate on hazard forecasting for Florida, Caribbean nations and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
Of 852 coastal counties included in their analysis, they said Carteret County in North Carolina has the highest probability of getting hit with hurricane-force winds in 2007.