Aug. 30 (Bloomberg) -- Crude oil rose for a second day in New York, after breaching $70 a barrel yesterday, as Hurricane Katrina forced companies to evacuate platforms in the Gulf of Mexico, where 30 percent of U.S. oil is produced.

Investors are concerned Katrina will disrupt output for weeks. The storm shut 92 percent of normal Gulf output, said the Minerals Management Service, which manages offshore resources. Katrina shut the Louisiana Offshore Oil Port, the country's biggest import terminal, and may have damaged ports around the Mississippi Delta used to supply rigs and platforms.

``The big questions right now are how did the oil rigs fare, and did it put enough silt into the delta to stop all the ships getting in and out,'' said Mark Waggoner, president of Excel Futures Inc. in Huntington Beach, California.

Crude oil for October delivery rose as much as 61 cents, or 0.9 percent, to $67.81 a barrel in after-hours electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. It was at $67.78 at 9:04 a.m. Sydney time.

Yesterday, the contract reached a record $70.80 a barrel within 1 minute of the opening of trading. It closed at $67.20, a gain of $1.07, or 1.6 percent. Prices today are 60 percent higher than a year ago.

Fuel Price Records

Oil jumped as much as $4.67, or 7.1 percent in early electronic trading yesterday, the biggest increase in 29 months, before retreating on speculation that supplies are sufficient to make up for lost Gulf output. Natural gas, heating oil and gasoline climbed to records.

Last year, oil prices rose 22 percent in the month after Hurricane Ivan damaged oil rigs, ripped up undersea pipelines and blocked with silt the ports oil companies rely on for supplying and maintaining facilities in the Gulf.

``There is a long list of production and refineries out because of the hurricane,'' said Tom Bentz, an oil broker at BNP Paribas Commodity Futures Inc. in New York. ``The course is similar to what we saw with Ivan last year, which hit production for a long time.''

Natural gas for September delivery jumped $1.055, or 11 percent, to close at $10.847 per million British thermal units yesterday, the highest since trading began in 1990. The contract, which yesterday reached a record $12.07, was at $11.57 in after- hours trading.

Natural Gas Losses

``Natural gas is the real worry,'' said Bill O'Grady, assistant director of market analysis at A.G. Edwards & Sons in St. Louis. ``Unfortunately we can't import the missing production. This is largely a domestic market.''

The storm shut 8.3 billion cubic feet of natural-gas output, equivalent to 83 percent of the total amount of gas produced in the Gulf. The report by the minerals service, which is part of the Interior Department, reflects information provided by 57 companies as of 12:30 p.m. New York time.

Katrina had sustained winds near 75 miles an hour (120 kph), the National Hurricane Center said at 4 p.m. local time. The hurricane's center was about 30 miles north-west of Laurel, Mississippi. Katrina made landfall on the Louisiana coast with winds of 145 mph yesterday morning.

``There is a big surplus of crude oil and the loss of a few million barrels will not be a big deal,'' said Michael Lynch, president of Strategic Energy and Economic Research in Winchester, Massachusetts.

U.S. Stockpiles

U.S. crude-oil supplies jumped 1.9 million barrels in the week ended Aug. 19, the fourth-straight increase, to 322.9 million, according to an Energy Department report on Aug. 24. Stockpiles are more than 10 percent higher than a year ago.

President George W. Bush will also consider tapping the nation's 700 million-barrel strategic petroleum reserve to help producers hobbled by Katrina, spokesman Scott McClellan said.

``The biggest impact may be damage to the port facilities south of New Orleans,'' said Adam Sieminski, chief energy economist at Deutsche Bank AG in New York. ``We have no way of knowing now how badly they are damaged.''

The Louisiana Offshore Oil Port, the biggest U.S. oil import terminal, stopped unloading tankers on Aug. 28. The port is 20 miles off the coast and handles about 1 million barrels of crude oil a day, or 11 percent of U.S. imports.

The company was returning inspection staff to its onshore storage facilities with the goal of restoring shipments to refiners, scheduling manager Mark Bugg said yesterday. An aerial survey of the marine terminal is planned for today, he said.

Refineries Shut

Gasoline and heating oil prices also reached records yesterday after Katrina forced the shutdown of at least eight oil refineries near the Gulf in Louisiana and Mississippi. The plants have a combined crude-oil processing capacity of about 1.79 million barrels a day, or 10.5 percent of total U.S. capacity.

The shutdowns may reduce U.S. gasoline production by 800,000-to-900,000 barrels a day this week, said Andy Lipow, president of Lipow Oil Associates LLC, a Houston consultant. Refineries may take five to 10 days to restore normal output, he said.

``This has very big ramifications, not only on the Gulf Coast but in the Southeast as well as the Midwest,'' Lipow said. ``Things are going to be very tight for the next week or two.''

Gasoline for September delivery jumped 13.37 cents, or 6.9 percent, to close at a record $2.0606 a gallon in New York. Futures, which yesterday touched $2.1606, the highest intraday price since trading began in 1984, were at $2.0950 in after- hours trading.

Heating oil for September delivery climbed 7.22 cents, or 3.9 percent, to close at a record $1.9088 a gallon. The contract which surged to $2.0137, the highest intraday price in 27 years of trading, was at $1.93 in after-hours trading.

``We won't know the full extent of the damage for weeks,'' said Marshall Steeves, an oil analyst at Refco Inc. in New York. ``A lot of the damage that occurred when Hurricane Ivan came through last year was underwater, which was difficult to survey and then repair.''

To contact the reporter on this story: Gavin Evans in Wellington, New Zealand at gavinevans@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: August 29, 2005 19:17 EDT