Hurricane Dolly Bypasses Gulf Oil Rigs

Hurricane Dolly made landfall on the South Texas coast Wednesday as a Category 2 hurricane, but the storm bypassed most major oil installations in the Gulf of Mexico, news services reported.

Oil prices fell to the lowest level in six weeks Tuesday as the storm’s track took it well southwest of most oil refineries on the Gulf Coast, Bloomberg reported.

Oil fell $2.74 Wednesday to close at $125.68 a barrel on New York Mercantile Exchange, and is down more than $20 since hitting a record over $147 less than two weeks ago, the Associated Press reported.

Dolly became the first hurricane of the season in the Gulf of Mexico, home to more than a quarter of U.S. oil production.

The region where it was coming ashore, near Brownvsille, Texas, close to the Mexico border, is well southwest of the majority of refineries in the Texas-Louisiana border region that was hard hit by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005, which led to then-record fuel prices.