SINGAPORE - Oil prices rose Monday in Asia to near $117 a barrel as Hurricane Gustav advanced on Louisana, prompting companies to shut down drilling and refining operations in the Gulf Coast coast region.

Light, sweet crude for October delivery was up $1.39 at $116.85 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange by midafternoon in Singapore. The contract slipped 13 cents on Friday to settle at $115.46 a barrel.

“There’s no question the drilling platforms in the Gulf of Mexico and the big refineries between Houston and New Orleans are in the path of this hurricane,” said Victor Shum, an energy analyst with consultancy Purvin & Gertz in Singapore. “There’s likely to be some damage. We could see an extended period of disruption.”

Oil companies are shutting down productions and evacuating facilities ahead of the storm. Exxon Mobil Corp., Royal Dutch Shell PLC and Valero Energy Corp., North America’s largest refiner, were among the companies that said they had shut down Gulf Coast refineries, primarily in south Louisiana.

Altogether, about 2.4 million barrels of refining capacity have been halted, roughly 15 percent of the nation’s total, according to figures from Platts, the energy information arm of McGraw-Hill Cos. The U.S. Gulf Coast is home to nearly half the nation’s refining capacity.

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written by Andrew