Thousands of people fled Texas coastal areas in the path of Hurricane Ike today as the storm gathered strength.
Ike is a Category 2 storm with 160 kph winds and could grow to a ferocious Category 4 storm on the five-step intensity scale with winds of 213 kph before coming ashore late tomorrow or early on Saturday, the National Hurricane Centre said.
The latest projections pointed Ike toward the middle of the Texas coast, skirting to the west of the main region for offshore production in the Gulf of Mexico, which provides a quarter of US oil and 15 per cent of its natural gas.
Ike's current track would see it hit the Texas coast near Freeport in Brazoria County, just south of Galveston.
Tens of thousands of residents near Galveston and Port Arthur were ordered to evacuate, though the numbers are nowhere near the 2 million people who fled Louisiana coastal cities in the path of Hurricane Gustav, which hit on September 1.
US crude oil prices were trading just above five-month lows today as a strong dollar and weakening energy demand projections offset worries about back-to-back hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico that have cut deeply into US energy supplies.
The Houston Ship Channel and Port Arthur, both major US refining centres, could see major storm surges that could swamp low-lying refineries.
At around 1pm Irish time today, the hurricane Centre said in its latest advisory that Ike was 920 km east of Brownsville, Texas, and about 435 km south-southeast of the mouth of the Mississippi River. It was moving west-northwest at 16 kph.
New Orleans, still scarred by Hurricane Katrina, which killed 1,500 people and caused $80 billion in damage on the US Gulf Coast in 2005, appeared to be out of danger.
However, the Centre early extended a tropical storm warning early today as far east as the Mississippi-Alabama border, including New Orleans and Lake Pontchartrain. A hurricane watch remained in effect from Cameron, Louisiana, west to Port Mansfield, Texas.
Reuters