NEW YORK - About half a million power customers in Illinois and Missouri remained without electricity on Thursday after a storm packing hurricane-force winds slammed the region, shutting one refinery and briefly disrupting oil pipeline operations.
Winds of up to 80 miles per hour snapped utility poles and downed powerlines across southwestern Illinois on Wednesday night, knocking out service to around 550,000 customers of Ameren Corp. .
About 450,000 customers remained without power by midday Thursday with services expected to be restored later this week.
"We're looking at at least 72 hours, unfortunately," said Ameren spokeswoman Erica Abbett, adding much of the St. Louis area will be among the last to have electricity restored.
Exelon Corp. subsidiary Commonwealth Edison said about 21,000 customers in the Chicago area were also without power Thursday following the storm.
ConocoPhillips was forced to shut its 306,000 barrel per day Wood River refinery in Roxana, Illinois after power to the plant was cut.
Trading sources said the refinery was expected to be back on line in three to five days assuming no damage occurred during the shutdown.
The power outage forced Kinder Moran on Wednesday night to shut its 150,000 barrel per day (bpd) Platte pipeline, which ships crude from Canada to the US Midwest. Throughput on the pipeline was restarted early Thursday morning.
The 700,000 bpd Explorer pipeline, which carries fuel from Tulsa, Oklahoma to Illinois, was also offline for four hours on Wednesday night due to the power failure.
US oil prices rose 42 cents to US$73.08 a barrel on news of the ConocoPhillips refinery outage, countering three days of losses that sent crude tumbling from record highs struck over US$78 a barrel last week. Cash gasoline prices also gained.
Last summer, US crude hit then-record prices after hurricanes slammed oil facilities along the US Gulf of Mexico.
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