LONDON, Sept 12: Oil prices on Friday rebounded from six-month lows as Hurricane Ike forced the closure of energy production facilities in the Gulf of Mexico, traders said.

New York’s main contract, light sweet crude for delivery in October, climbed $1.80 to $102.67 a barrel.

Brent North Sea crude for October gained $1.69 to $99.33 in London.

“Ike could develop into a Category 3 storm, threatening to disrupt more production from refineries along the Gulf of Mexico coast,” said oil analyst Andrey Kryuchenkov at the Sucden brokerage in London.

Oil and natural gas production in the Gulf of Mexico was largely closed, though the US Department of Energy (DoE) said Ike appeared likely to spare most rigs and platforms there.

“Some 95.9 per cent of the Gulf of Mexico’s 1.3 million barrels per day of oil production and 73.1 per cent of its 7.4 billion cubic feet per day of natural gas production has been turned off,” the department said in a statement issued on Thursday.

The bulk of US oil refineries are in the gulf, where Anglo-Dutch oil giant Shell began evacuating personnel on Wednesday.

Crude futures were also higher after Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez on Thursday threatened to halt the supply of oil to the United States, its main client, if Washington showed “aggression” towards Venezuela.

Oil prices had tumbled to six-month lows under $97 a barrel on Thursday as the dollar rallied and demand worries temporarily outweighed concerns over Ike.

—AFP