May 18 (Bloomberg) -- Crude oil rose to a three-week high in New York on speculation breakdowns and production halts mean refiners will have trouble replenishing U.S. gasoline stockpiles with the summer driving season approaching.

Gasoline futures jumped 4.3 percent yesterday after Sunoco Inc. closed a 36,000-barrel-a-day gasoline pipeline supplying Buffalo, New York. ConocoPhillips and Murphy Oil Corp. have shut units for repairs, raising concern supplies will remain below average as summer demand peaks.

``Probably stocks, based on demand, have never been lower in our history,'' said Tom Bentz, an oil broker with BNP Paribas Inc. in New York. ``The demand, of course, is still very, very strong and is still rising as we head into the driving season.''

Crude oil for June delivery rose as much as 37 cents, or 0.6 percent, to $65.23 a barrel in after-hours electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract traded at $65.19 at 1:11 p.m. in London.

Gasoline stockpiles were 7.5 percent below their five-year average last week, according to the U.S. Department of Energy. Demand in the U.S, the world's biggest oil consumer, peaks during the summer, beginning with Memorial Day at the end of this month. The vacation season coincides with the North Atlantic hurricane season, which can disrupt production in the Gulf of Mexico.

Brent crude oil for July settlement dropped 30 cents at $69.97 a barrel in electronic trading on the ICE Futures exchange at 1:13 p.m. in London. The contract rose $2.30, or 3.4 percent, yesterday to close at $70.27, the highest since August.

Refinery Problems

ConocoPhillips, the second-largest U.S. refiner, said yesterday it would halt a catalytic cracking unit and a boiler at its 146,000-barrel-a-day plant in Borger, Texas, for maintenance.

BP Plc will shut a 115,000-barrel-a-day gasoline unit at its Texas City plant for 11 days, Reuters reported, citing a trader it didn't identify.

Murphy Oil Corp. shut a unit at its 125,000-barrel-a-day Meraux refinery near New Orleans yesterday for ``minor maintenance.''

U.S. pump prices for regular gasoline rose 1.5 cents to a record $3.129 a gallon yesterday, the AAA said. It's up about 32 percent this year, beating the Sept. 5, 2005, record set when hurricanes Katrina and Rita hit oil rigs and refineries in the Gulf of Mexico.

``U.S. refinery trouble led to higher gasoline prices, which pulled up crude oil prices,'' said Hiroyuki Kikukawa, an associate director of research at Nihon Unicom Corp. in Tokyo. ``Prices may try and reach $68'' a barrel.

Next Week

Crude oil may rise next week as U.S. refineries increase gasoline production. Twenty of 40 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg News, or 50 percent, said oil prices will rise.

U.S. refineries ran at 89.5 percent of capacity last week, the Energy Department reported May 16. That is less than the 94 percent they reached in the same week in 2005, before Katrina and Rita hit the Gulf.

``People are very worried about a stoppage of gasoline supplies,'' said Tetsu Emori, the chief commodities strategist at Mitsui Bussan Futures Ltd. in Tokyo. ``The Nigerian issues are a big factor in the market, especially for Brent crude.''

Expressed in U.S. dollars, West Texas Intermediate, the New York-traded benchmark, has fallen about 7 percent in the past 12 months. Oil has dropped 12 percent in euros, 11 percent in British pounds. WTI price rose almost 3 percent in yen.

Gasoline Crack

Refinery bottlenecks pushed the profit for processing crude into motor fuels to a record high this year. The profit margin, the so-called crack, has more than tripled this year.

Turning three barrels of crude into two barrels of gasoline and one of heating oil provided a record-high crack of $30.48 yesterday in New York.

The spread at the U.S. Gulf of Mexico coast may fall about 50 percent to $14 a barrel over the next several weeks, Neil McMahon, a London-based analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein & Co., wrote today in a report. ``As refinery outages unwind over the next few weeks, excess hydroskimming capacity will again return to the market.''

Idemitsu Kosan Co., Japan's second-largest refiner, is preparing to restart part of a refinery unit damaged by fire May 11, Makiko Iinuma, a company spokeswoman, said today. The fuel oil desulphurization unit has a total capacity of 60,000 barrels a day.

To contact the reporter on this story: Eduard Gismatullin in London at egismatullin@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: May 18, 2007 08:27 EDT