Oil stocks and everything else, brace yourself for Hurricane Gustav

Gustav gathered force and slammed into Cuba as a Category 4 hurricane Saturday, giving oil bears and stock market bulls cause for concern. Monday's trading should be out-of-control.

NEW ORLEANS (Reuters) - Ferocious Hurricane Gustav moved into the oil-rich Gulf of Mexico on Saturday where it was expected to strengthen and threaten New Orleans after its 150 mile per hour (240 kph) winds cut a swath of destruction through western Cuba.

The Category 4 storm swept across Cuba in a matter of hours and now poses a threat to Gulf oil fields on a projected path that could take it ashore near New Orleans, still recovering from Hurricane Katrina in August 2005.

Forecasters said Gustav's winds had dropped to 140 mph (220 kph) crossing the island, but, like Katrina, it could swell into a catastrophic Category 5 storm, with winds above 155 mph (249 kph), as it surges across the Gulf's warm waters.

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It was expected to drop back to Category 4 on the five-stage Saffir-Simpson hurricane intensity scale before reaching the U.S. Gulf Coast on Monday, they said.

New Orleans officials, mindful of the 1,500 dead and $80 billion in damage wrought by Katrina, ordered people in the low-lying city to evacuate starting on Sunday morning.

"I must tell you, this is the mother of all storms," Mayor Ray Nagin said. "You need to be concerned and you need to get your butts moving and out of New Orleans right now."

Highways around New Orleans already were jammed and hundreds of people, some still carrying emotional scars from the disaster three years ago, lined up to board buses.

Energy companies, whose 4,000 platforms in the Gulf produce a quarter of U.S. crude oil and 15 percent of its natural gas, braced for Gustav by evacuating personnel and shutting down three-fourths of their oil production

SOURCE: http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSN2541891320080831