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Tropical Storm Debby May Hit Big Refinery

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Tropical storm Debby, the fourth named storm of the 2000 Atlantic hurricane season, had a 27 percent chance of striking the island of St. Croix, home to the Western hemisphere's largest oil refinery, the U.S. National Hurricane Center forecast on Monday morning.

Concerns that the storm, expected to strengthen within the next 24 hours, would hit St. Croix's and interrupt production at the 545,000 barrel per day (bpd) Hovensa refinery helped boost petroleum futures prices sharply on the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX) in early trade, boosting crude oil prices roughly 70 cents a barrel to $32.75.

At 8 a.m. EDT, Debby was centered about 400 miles east of the Leeward Islands near latitude 15.7 north and longitude 55.3 west, and had maximum sustained winds of 50 miles per hour, the NHC said.

It was moving west-northwest at about 20 mph, and had a 27 percent chance of passing within 65 nautical miles of St. Croix within the next three days, a 27 percent chance of hitting St. Thomas, and a 24 percent chance of hitting San Juan, the NHC said.

The Hovensa refinery on St. Croix is jointly owned and operated by Amerada Hess (NYSE:AHC - news) and Venezuela's PDVSA, and is a major producer of refined products to the continental U.S.

A Hovensa spokesman said Monday that the company has yet to determine whether it will have any precautionary shutdowns at the plant, since the storm is still days away.

Tropical storms form and are given names when maximum sustained winds break 39 mph and become hurricanes when top winds break 74 mph.


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