LONDON, Sept 21: World oil prices made strong gains on Wednesday as Hurricane Rita gathered speed and threatened fresh damage to vital US Gulf of Mexico platforms and refineries, analysts said.

New York’s main contract, light sweet crude for delivery in November jumped $1.25 to $67.45 per barrel in early trading.

In London, the price of Brent North Sea crude for November delivery gained 95 cents to $65.15 per barrel.

“It is too premature to speculate about how much damage (there) could be but clearly there is potential for new highs,” CALYON analyst Mike Wittner said.

Fimat analyst John Kilduff said: “We hate to be prophets of doom and gloom, but the effects of Katrina are still fresh and a storm of equivalent strength, and possibly stronger, is about to hit the other premier refining, production and distribution centre.”

Around one quarter of US oil operations are based in the Gulf Coast.

British energy giant BP said on Wednesday that it was evacuating staff from its Gulf facilities after a similar move by Royal Dutch Shell.

The latest weekly snapshot of US crude inventories data from the Department of Energy (DoE), meanwhile, had a limited effect on the market.

Crude inventories dropped for the week that ended Sept 16 by 300,000 barrels. Traders had been expecting an increase of about one million barrels as oil production recovered from Katrina. Gasoline supplies rose by 3.4m barrels, the DoE added. Distillates — used for heating oil and diesel fuel — increased 800,000 barrels.—AFP