Hurricane Katrina's damage to the massive oil and gas infrastructure around Louisiana and the Gulf Coast likely will drive up fuel prices across the country, but gas was flowing into Florida on Monday, easing fears of statewide shortages.
How much prices will rise and how long gas production in Louisiana and Mississippi will suffer won't be gauged for days.
Price increases at the pumps will be felt first. Wholesalers raised prices to retailers by 30 cents a gallon early Monday, said Jim Smith of the Florida Petroleum Marketers and Convenience Store Association.
Spot checks of Tampa Bay stations hadn't reflected that price jump - yet.
"There's a lot of speculation about what might be, but nothing factual to base it on," Smith said.
There is enough gas in Florida to last about a week and 40 ships carrying enough gas for another 10 days will come in over the next nine days, the Florida Department of Environmental Protection announced Monday evening.
At the Port of Tampa, 53-million gallons of gas is set to arrive in the next three days to add to the more than 60-million gallons at the port. Floridians use about 23-million gallons of gas a day, almost all of it arriving by barge or ship.
Oil industry and state officials said Florida's supply shouldn't be a problem, so long as people don't panic and begin hoarding gas.
"I think it's an important time to conserve," Gov. Jeb Bush said. "We should be conserving more, anyway, given the price of energy. This is becoming a serious issue for a lot of working families in our state."
Oil prices spiked to more than $70 a barrel in overnight trading Sunday. They retreated to pre-storm prices after reports that President Bush considered tapping strategic oil reserves. Also, there were early indications of minimal damage at some of the eight refineries shut down during the storm.
Katrina halted more than 90 percent of the oil pumped from offshore facilities, blocking more than 3-million barrels a day since rigs began shutting down over the weekend.
There was little information on how the oil rigs in the gulf weathered the storm Monday, but by the end of the day, more than 700 offshore platforms and rigs had been evacuated, two rigs had drifted away and authorities in Alabama were forced to close a bridge over the Mobile River after it was struck by a runaway platform.
Richard Karp, a senior policy analyst with the American Petroleum Institute, said Monday that predicting the scope of disruptions and problems was difficult because so many facilities were affected: ports, rigs, pipelines, barge traffic and refineries.
"There are a lot of moving parts," he said.
Karp said the storm shut down the largest oil port in the country, the Louisiana Offshore Oil Port, which handles more than 10 percent of the nation's oil imports. The storm also shut down 12 percent of the nation's refining capacity. Significant damage to either the port or refineries will cause problems that extend far beyond where Katrina's rains fell, he said.
Last year, Ivan damaged seven platforms and damaged two dozen facilities and 102 pipelines, requiring months of repair. But Karp said the rest of the area was back up quickly, and while all storms are different, the oil industry can operate in "extreme circumstances."
"We're going to do whatever we can do to deliver fuel to wherever it's needed," he said.
Petroleum vessels began arriving Monday at Tampa's port. Two operated by Maritrans Inc., which supplies 40 percent of petroleum products at the port, were due to come in overnight.
Those loaded vessels left refineries near New Orleans late Friday. They took a roundabout route to Tampa, sailing west and south around Katrina, said Jonathan Whitworth, Maritrans' chief executive.
Dave Mica, executive director of the Florida Petroleum Council, said having ships on the way to Florida with gas on board would make fuel available while oil officials assess the damage.
"If people are responsible and don't go out and fill up everything they can ... we can make it through this thing," Mica said.
Around Tampa Bay on Monday, gas stations were busy.
Michael Porrata, the manager on duty at the Radiant gas station on Fletcher Avenue in Tampa, said Monday was fairly typical: busy. People weren't talking about the hurricane, he said, but, "I've seen a lot of people come in and fill up their gas."
Lots of customers have been fueling up their cars at Dave & Michelle's Amoco in St. Petersburg "because they're afraid that gas prices are going to be higher," co-owner Michelle Percival said Monday.
And when customers ask what she thinks, doesn't mince words.
"We expect it to go higher."
--Times staff writers Steve Huettel, Joni James, Stephanie Hayes and Curtis Krueger contributed to this report, which used information from the Associated Press.
