Europe's energy industry was ready to send more fuel the United States on Friday as Hurricane Rita threatened to wreak havoc on Texan oil and gas facilities. The storm has the potential to cause fuel shortages and price spikes in the world's number one energy consumer.
Given the global nature of oil markets, price movements would affect energy costs in Europe and across the globe.
"Europe can play its part in any global response if a global response is necessary," said Claude Mandil, executive director of the West's energy watchdog, the Paris-based International Energy Agency.
The IEA would meet on Saturday to assess the impact of Rita on the US energy industry and would take a decision quickly if international oil reserves again needed to be tapped, he said.
Europe released oil products from its strategic reserves to ease a supply crunch in the United States after Hurricane Katrina devastated the Mississippi and Louisiana coasts three weeks ago.
European refiners and traders also exported large volumes of gasoline to the United States.
Europe's reserves release was part of a global IEA 30-day rescue plan for the US that began on September 9. The plan involved the release of 1.3 million barrels per day of crude (bpd) and just under 700,000 bpd of oil products.
But it was oil products such as transport fuel that the US needed most, as crude stocks were relatively high and refinery processing capacity was cut by Katrina.
Rita is expected to make landfall early on Saturday in Texas, home to a quarter of US refining capacity.
If the storm has anything like the effect that Katrina did on plants in Lousiana and Mississippi, then oil product supply could be badly disputed again.
Ahead of the storm, around 2.2 million barrels per day of US gasoline production capacity and 1.2 million bpd of diesel capacity had been shut in, the US Energy Information Administration said on Friday.
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