Sept. 1 (Bloomberg) -- Gasoline rose for a fourth day after Hurricane Katrina shut oil refineries near the Gulf of Mexico, raising prospects U.S. pump prices will exceed $3 a gallon.

Katrina shut eight refineries and curbed output at another three, reducing the nation's fuel production by more than 10 percent. Some refiners and wholesalers are rationing the fuel. Crude oil fell for a second day after the government promised to release oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.

Gasoline has ``gone ballistic,'' said David Thurtell, commodity strategist at Commonwealth Bank of Australia in Sydney. ``Requests from other refiners will be coming in thick and fast'' for the emergency oil to produce motor fuel, he said.

Gasoline for October delivery rose 5.93 cents, or 2.6 percent, to $2.3146 a gallon in after-hours electronic trading at 10:22 a.m. Singapore time. The September contract touched a record $2.92 a gallon on the New York Mercantile Exchange before the contract expired yesterday at $2.6145 a gallon, a 5.7 percent gain.

Crude oil for October delivery was at $68.73 a barrel, down 21 cents, in after-hours trading. The contract, which reached a record $70.85 on Aug. 30, fell 87 cents, or 1.3 percent, to $68.94 a barrel yesterday. Prices today are 56 percent higher than a year ago.

Record fuel costs are eating into consumer spending, curbing economic expansion. U.S. growth slowed to a 3.3 percent annual rate in the second quarter as people spent less because of rising energy costs, the Commerce Department said yesterday.

Oil Port

Workers at the Louisiana Offshore Oil Port were yesterday preparing to start unloading tankers again.

``We have people on the platform and working to restore communication right now,'' Mark Bugg, scheduling manager at New Orleans-based Loop LLC, the port operator, said yesterday. ``A tanker may dock this afternoon and possibly offload by this evening.''

The oil port stopped unloading tankers on Aug. 27 as Katrina approached. Port Fourchon in Louisiana, a staging area for workers who staff Gulf oil and natural-gas production platforms, opened yesterday morning.

Placid Refining Co. said it will start receiving a one million-barrel oil loan from the strategic reserve next week. The company's 49,000 barrels-a-day refinery in Port Allen, Louisiana is operating at 70 percent capacity after the hurricane shut pipelines that supply its crude oil.

Refiner Requests

The U.S. government has received at least three requests from refiners for oil from the reserve, U.S. Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman said yesterday.

U.S. gasoline stockpiles had their ninth straight decline last week, falling 508,000 barrels to 194.4 million, the U.S. Energy Department said yesterday. Crude-oil inventories declined 1.5 million barrels to 321.4 million, the department reported.

Eight refineries in Louisiana and Mississippi were closed yesterday, halting at least 1.79 million barrels a day of refining capacity. Another three are operating at less than capacity because power or pipeline failures have reduced supplies of crude oil.

``Release of the SPR isn't going to get the refineries back on line or get the electricity running,'' said Peter Beutel, an energy consultant and president of Cameron Hanover Inc. in New Canaan, Connecticut.

Regular-grade gasoline, averaged nationwide, rose 1.5 cents to a record $2.619 a gallon Aug. 30, according to data released by the AAA, the nation's largest motoring organization. Pump prices are 41 percent higher than a year ago.

$4 a Gallon

``We're going to be over $4 a gallon retail by the end of next week,'' said William Shireman, executive vice president of Gas City Ltd., a 50-station chain based in Frankfort, Illinois.

Retail prices have now surpassed levels not seen for 25 years. Gasoline prices surged then because of the Iranian revolution of 1979. Retail prices peaked at a nationwide average $1.38 a gallon in 1981, according to the Energy Department. That's about $2.95 in today's dollars.

Shireman said major oil companies have stopped selling unbranded gasoline to independent retailers in Illinois and have cut back on contract allotments. The wholesale price he pays for gasoline had risen about 80 cents a gallon in two days, he said.

About 30 percent of U.S. oil production comes from offshore platforms in the Gulf, while the region accounts for 24 percent of the country's gas output.

Output Cuts

The storm shut 1.37 million barrels of daily crude-oil output, about 91 percent of the region's output, according to a survey yesterday by the U.S. Minerals Management Service, which manages offshore resources. About 95 percent of the region's output was cut the day before.

Royal Dutch Shell Plc, Europe's second-largest oil company, said two oil production platforms and a pumping station in the central Gulf of Mexico area were damaged by Hurricane Katrina.

Brian Turmail, a spokesman for the U.S. Department of Transportation, which regulates pipelines, said the two major pipelines used to transport oil from the Gulf Coast to the Eastern United States would be up and running by midnight local time.

Shell said its Capline crude oil pipeline resumed operations at a reduced rate after being shut because of power failures after the storm.

``Once the refineries start making the product you have to transport it,'' said Mark Routt, a senior consultant at Energy Security Analysis, Inc. in Wakefield, Massachusetts. ``The Northeast is less of an issue because we can get cargoes from Europe. Florida has a big problem because 60 to 70 percent of their gasoline is barged across the Gulf.''

Restoring power to the Gulf state refineries and pipelines is the biggest issue, said Chris Ovrebo, a broker with FC Stone LLC in Eden Prairie, Minnesota.

``Most of these refineries didn't sustain heavy damage,'' he said. ``It's not going to take them six months to get back on line.''

To contact the reporter on this story: Gavin Evans in Wellington, New Zealand at gavinevans@bloomberg.net; Will Kennedy in Singapore at wkennedy3@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: August 31, 2005 22:47 EDT