LONDON, Sept 13 (AFP) - Oil prices surged on Monday as Hurricane Ivan threatened production and import activities in the Gulf of Mexico, putting new strains on already tight supplies, traders said.
The price of benchmark Brent North Sea crude oil for delivery in October jumped 1.25 dollars to 41.45 dollars a barrel in late afternoon trading.
New York's reference contract, light sweet crude for delivery in October, climbed 1.18 dollars to 43.99 dollars in early deals.
The market was "largely reacting to the development of this hurricane and the possibility of it heading further west," said Prudential Bache broker Tony Machecek.
"This is possibly a temporary reaction by the market. In the longer term it's unlikely to have any devastating effect on supply," he added.
Oil giants Shell and BP evacuated workers from platforms in the eastern Gulf of Mexico because of Hurricane Ivan.
"We will complete the evacuation of all personnel from our eastern Gulf of Mexico operations by the end of today," a Shell spokesman said.
The six Shell production sites affected have a daily production capacity of 272,000 barrels of crude oil and 23 million cubic metres (805 million cubic feet) of gas.
BP began pulling some staff from facilities in the Gulf of Mexico over the weekend.
The Louisiana Offshore Oil Port, the biggest US oil import terminal, reportedly had stopped offloading tankers.
OPEC ministers meanwhile began arriving in Vienna ahead of a meeting on Wednesday to discuss output, though analysts said there was little more the cartel could do to bring down prices.
Qatari Oil Minister Abdulah Bin Hamad al-Attiyah said was no shortage of oil in the market.
He said the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries was producing close to its maximum capacity and it was unlikely there would be a decision at the meeting to change OPEC's official production ceiling of 26 million barrels per day.
"The message to the market is that the oil is there," he told reporters in Vienna.
OPEC is also expected to discuss raising its 22-28 dollar per barrel target price band, which is far below current prices.
"Consensus seems to favour a price band hike (to centre on 30 dollars) and an increase in quota (albeit with little chance of actually higher output)," analysts at Deutsche Bank told clients.
An increase in quotas of one million barrels per day to 27.0 million barrels would still leave OPEC's production ceiling below its actual output of about 28 million barrels a day, excluding Iraq, they said.
Analysts at Barclays Capital said they expected no change to either production or quotas at the OPEC meeting, though the target price band might be altered.