Oil Falls Below $102 as Hurricane Ike Moves Toward Texas

Oil prices continued to fall toward $100 a barrel Thursday, even as Hurricane Ike strengthened in the Gulf of Mexico heading toward the Texas coast, Bloomberg reported.

Crude futures fell to $101.72 a barrel in early trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange, Bloomberg said.

Oil has fallen in eight of the last nine trading sessions, from $118.15 on Aug. 28, and is down about $44 from the record $145.29 closing price set on July 3.

The decline was in part to a stronger U.S. dollar against the euro, Bloomberg reported.

About 96% of Gulf of Mexico oil production was shuttered due to Ike’s path, and the storm was on a track to come ashore late Friday or Saturday near Galveston, Texas, news reports said.

The path puts Ike’s landfall further south and west than the refinerty-rich region hit by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita along the Louisiana-Texas border in 2005.