Hurricane Dean spares the Gulf-So far

News release

St. John's, NL, August 21, 2007- Hurricane Dean has spared consumers in most areas the inconvenience of skyrocketting prices as it hit the Yucatan Peninsula earlier this morning. Early last week, projections from the National Hurricane center showed Dean making a direct track to the Gulf of Mexico and its crude production and refining facilities.

"We're lucky in some aspects here that Dean managed to turn to a more direct westerly direction rather than hit the chief production and refining centers on the Texas-Louisianna border. Last week showed a different scenario when Dean was foreecast to throw itself on the US gulf coast," said George Murphy, group researcher and member of the Consumer Group for Fair Gas Prices.

"We expected that spot pricing would have risen to unbearable levels as they did with Katrina had the hurricane hit directly in the center of the gulf coast but that didn't happen. While some production on the Mexico side of the Gulf may occur, that shouldn't do anything major to gasoline pricing. We may likely see an increase to crude as overall Mexican production will be affected but that shouldn't bight into consumers pocketbooks.

"In Newfoundland and Labrador where pricing is regulated, numbers show only a 3 cent a litre allowable at the pump level and that is expected to moderate somewhat now that Dean has done a complete swing-around in direction.Already, spots have begun to decline again and the likelihood of any "early interruption" in pricing has passed with that. Four cents is needed for any interruption in pricing to occur and that's not going to happen now, according to the numbers I have.

"We're all just praying now that there is going to be no loss of life in Mexico as this brutal storm passes over the Yucatan Peninsula. Dean is forecast to regain some strength as it re-enters the Gulf sometime late today. Crude oil production has been halted at Cantarell, the worlds third largest field in the world as a result of Dean's track and some 14,000 oil workers have been evacuated."

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For more information, contact;

George Murphy

Group researcher/Member

Consumer Group for Fair Gas Prices

(709)685-6186 cellular

gasprices@hotmail.com