Hurricane Ida raised oil prices by 1 percent after the authorities shut down hundreds of oil rigs.
Brent crude futures rose 84 cents, or 1.2 percent, to $73.54 a barrel, after rising more than 11 percent last week in anticipation of a disruption in oil production.
US West Texas Intermediate crude futures rose 53 cents, or 0.8 percent, to $69.27 a barrel, after jumping just over 10 percent last week.
By Saturday, energy companies had shut down 91 percent of oil production, or 1.65 million barrels per day, in the US Gulf of Mexico, according to the Office of Safety and Environmental Enforcement, as Ida headed toward drilling rigs and other infrastructure.
A regulator said oil and gas companies had evacuated 290 offshore facilities and moved 11 drilling ships out of danger by midday Saturday.
The National Hurricane Center reported that Ida hit the coast near Port Fortune, Louisiana, the center of the offshore energy industry in the Gulf, on Sunday after becoming an extremely dangerous Category 4 hurricane.
Hurricane Ida
Hurricane Ida made landfall in the US state of Louisiana, yesterday, as an extremely dangerous Category 4 hurricane, at a time when President Joe Biden warned of “enormous devastation.”
Residents who refused to leave their homes were preparing for the most severe test yet of dams that cost billions of dollars to reinforce after Hurricane Katrina 16 years ago, which killed more than 1,800 people.
Biden warned that Hurricane Ida poses an imminent threat to life with the possibility of massive devastation represented by power outages that may last weeks for residents who live in areas near the US Gulf Coast.
The US National Hurricane Center said Ida gathered his strength overnight and made landfall near Port Fortune, Louisiana.
The hurricane continued its way with winds of up to 80 kilometers per hour, forcing the state to suspend emergency medical services, and then the storm headed to the northwest at a speed of 21 kilometers per hour.
Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards said Ida may be the worst hurricane to hit the state since the 1850s.
According to the Power Outage website, which monitors blackouts, more than 122,000 homes and businesses have lost power in Louisiana, mostly in the southeast of the state.
Edwards added that hospitals are already treating about 2,450 patients with Covid-19, and that many of them are already close to full capacity.
The Bureau of Safety and Environmental Standards Enforcement said 288 oil and gas rigs and 11 drilling rigs had been evacuated in the US Gulf.
