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By SKIP DESCANT

Each inch the Mississippi River rises seems to trigger a new set of worries, ranging from protecting equipment to product transportation issues, among dozens of petrochemical plant and other operators clustered along the river.

“We have electrical pumps that feed river water to our plant to use in our processes,” said Gerald Lasseigne, safety and security supervisor for Louisiana at the Mosaic Chemical Co. in St. James Parish. “And the electrical wires to the pumps are below the docks,” he said.

The threat of high water means those electrical systems have to be shut down, nearly stopping production at the company’s phosphate plant, Lasseigne said.

“As the water rises, it gets into the electrical and we have to stop that ahead of time before it becomes a problem. We have to kill all the electric to those pumps,” he added.

Other plants are dealing with transportation issues as flooding elsewhere limits both river and rail traffic.

One plant that depends on a rail connection with Memphis, Tenn., is experiencing delays because of flooding upriver, said Dan Borne, president of the Louisiana Chemical Association, an industry group that’s closely watching the river levels.

“The Memphis connection is not so much a river connection; it’s a rail connection. And they can’t get rail out of Memphis because of the flood. It has impacts on various types of modes of transportation,” Borne said.

Anticipating problems from Mississippi River levels not seen in more 80 years, a number of chemical plants took action last week when docks and other river structures were more accessible, Borne said.

“Some plants are having problems shipping products out,” he said. “Some plants pre-shipped products to customers when they realized that there would be restrictions on certain types of vessels moving up and down the river.”

ExxonMobil has 400 workers keeping surveillance on river activity as the river stage at Baton Rouge continues to climb.

The Mississippi River at Baton Rouge is expected to crest May 22 at 47.5 feet, with levee protection ranging from 47.3 to 51 feet. The river was at 43.4 feet as of 8 p.m. Thursday.

As a precaution, ExxonMobil has put in place some 2,300 sand bags as well as staged water pumps and generators, said Stephanie Cargile, public and government affairs manager.

It should be noted that these river stages are predicted only if the Morganza Spillway north of Baton Rouge is not opened to divert some of the water flowing down the Mississippi River.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is expected to decide this weekend about opening the Morganza Spillway to relieve water levels. The Bonnet Carre Spillway, north of New Orleans, was opened earlier this week.

If no action is taken, the movement of vessels up and down the river could grind to a near halt as early as Tuesday if the water keeps rising on its projected path, the U.S. Coast Guard is reporting.

As of Thursday, the Carrollton gauge, a river level marker in New Orleans was at 17.1 feet, said Ronald Branch, vice president for government affairs with the Mississippi River Maritime Association. At 17.5 feet restrictions are placed on deep-draft, ocean-going vessels, Branch said.

If no action is taken, the river is expected to reach 18.5 feet by Tuesday, which is the level that the river between Baton Rouge and the Gulf of Mexico is closed to navigational traffic, according Coast Guard advisories.

With the decision about the Morganza Spillway still to be made, the Port of New Orleans told The Associated Press it is preparing for the possible closing of the river to ship traffic as early as Monday. The ultimate decision would come from the Coast Guard, said port spokesman Chris Bonura.

Ships approaching the river from the Gulf are being informed, Bonura said.

If the river is closed, one of the world’s busiest commercial waterways would come to a halt. Barges headed south from the nation’s heartland to the Port of South Louisiana at Reserve, upriver from New Orleans, would be unable to reach grain elevators. Massive grain ships that carry U.S. corn, soybeans and other crops out of the country would be unable to move. Shipments of Venezuelan heavy crude oil that come in by tanker to a refinery in Chalmette would be locked out of the river, though most refineries on the river are fed by pipelines.

“We’re asking for the Morganza Spillway to go ahead and let’s open that up,” said Connie Fabre, executive director of the Greater Baton Rouge Industry Alliance.

Fabre said she’s sensitive to the thousands of acres of cropland and other properties that will be flooded if the spillway is opened, which has not happened since 1973.

“We have to make that decision in light of the communities, and we understand that, and we really want the corps to make a decision as judiciously as possible, and that meets the needs of all Louisianians the best,” Fabre said. “Economic issues aren’t always over-arching. You have to weigh the community. But make a decision.”

It’s not just farmers and rural areas preparing for flooding, should the corps decide to open the Morganza floodgates. Land along the Atchafalaya River is also subject to flooding because of the massive amounts of water that would flow into the Atchafalaya Basin.

Conrad Industries Inc. in Morgan City said it has temporarily shuttered its shipyard along the Atchafalaya River. The yard is outside protective levees.

The company has moved vessels under construction, about 200 employees and contract workers and major equipment to its two shipyards at Amelia along the Intracoastal Waterway. Conrad builds tugboats, offshore supply boats and other vessels, many employed by the offshore oil industry.

Alon Refinery in Krotz Springs is finalizing a plan to further protect its refinery and equipment by constructing an additional levee to prevent floodwater from entering the refinery property.

Other companies like Houston-based Kirby Corp., an inland waterways tank barge operator on the Mississippi, is scaling back second-quarter earnings estimates because of  reduced shipping activity.

The company said in a statement that it is being affected by high water on the Mississippi River and noted that opening the Morganza Spillway could cause conditions that result in the closure of the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway in the Morgan City area to marine traffic up to several weeks.

“Unfortunately, until the flooding subsides and tank barge traffic resumes, it is not possible for us to accurately assess the financial impact of these historic events,” Joe Pyne, Kirby’s chairman and chief executive officer, said in a statement Thursday.

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By Jonathan Tilove

Oil company executives were called before Congress a year ago to answer for what were alleged to be lax industry practices that set the stage for the BP oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.

john_watson_chevron.jpgView full sizeJ. Scott Applewhite, The Associated PressChevron’s chairman of the board and CEO John Watson, center, and Shell Oil President Marvin Odum, right, testify before the Senate Finance Committee on Thursday.

On Thursday, they were once again facing the music on Capitol Hill, this time to explain why they make so much money, and whether with high gas prices they really need billions of dollars in government tax incentives and deductions to drill and explore for oil.

“You make a lot of money, that’s fine, that’s the American way, but it seems maybe the subsidies are just not that necessary anymore,” said Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont.

“How much profit do you need to make on a barrel of oil to not be needful of these subsidies that we think you don’t need and you think your life depends on?” asked Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-West Virginia.

“I don’t think the American people want shared sacrifice, I think they want shared prosperity,” replied John Watson, chairman and chief executive officer of Chevron Corporation, which made $6.2 billion in profits the first quarter of the year.

“Do you understand how out of touch that statement is?” responded Rockefeller, the great-grandson of John D. Rockefeller, who, as founder of Standard Oil of New Jersey, the forerunner of Exxon, was at the turn of the 20th century the richest man in the world. “We don’t get to shared prosperity until we get to shared sacrifice.”

But as Watson put it earlier in the hearing, “Don’t punish our industry for doing our job well.”

Taxes are paid

Watson and his four fellow executives from Exxon Mobil, ConocoPhillips, BP and Shell stood their ground, contending that, as Watson put it, the oil and gas industry already pays its fair share in taxes, that they are not benefiting from subsidies but “long-standing oil and gas provisions in the tax code (that) parallel tax treatment of other industries are designed to prevent double taxation,” and that “singling out five companies because of their size” is “anti-competitive and discriminatory.”

They said what really is needed is for the U.S. government to issue permits and open new territories for drilling, and shortly after their hearing ended the Republican House approved the third of three bills intended to expedite and expand drilling opportunities. The legislation, approved on a mostly partisan vote of 243 to179, would open lease sales off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts. The action was cheered by industry and chided by environmentalists, who said the House is courting disaster.

“They open some of our most pristine and beautiful shorelines up to the same sort of potential disaster we saw in the Gulf of Mexico with BP Deepwater Horizon — and they make the system that oversees offshore drilling less safe than before the Gulf spill,” said Francis Beinecke, president of the Natural Resources Defense Council and a former member of the National Oil Spill Commission.

Bills could die in Senate

The House bills, which were rushed to the floor by the Republican leadership against a backdrop of spiking gas prices, would appear to have no realistic prospect in the Senate, where Democrats are moving to vote next week on a proposal to remove $21 billion in tax incentives and deductions over the next 10 years for the Big Five oil companies. That effort is unlikely to muster the 60 votes needed, especially with the declaration on the Senate floor Wednesday by oil state Democrats Mary Landrieu of Louisiana and Mark Begich of Alaska that they would fight it.

“In my view it’s a waste of time and, no pun intended, a waste of energy that we need to save if we’re going to tackle the real hard question, which is how to get us through the debt-limit situation, how to really reduce the deficit, which is going to take a combination of cuts and revenue raisers,” Landrieu said Thursday. “But to pick on one industry, particularly an industry that only pulls down less than 15 percent of all energy subsidies but provides 60 percent of the energy, just doesn’t make a lot of sense.”

But Landrieu’s Democratic colleagues on the Senate Finance Committee were determined to place the oil company profits in the context of the economic pain being suffered by ordinary Americans, and the very tough choices before Congress.

Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., asked James Mulva, chairman and chief executive officer of ConocoPhillips, which made $3 billion in profits the first quarter, “Do you think your subsidy is more important than financial aid we give to students to go to college?”

“They are two totally different situations,” Mulva said. “That’s a choice legislatively that you are going to have to make.”

Same question, new answer

At the opening of the hearing, Baucus noted that “in 2005, President George W. Bush said, ‘With $55 (a barrel) oil, we don’t need incentives to oil and gas companies to explore. There are plenty of incentives.’ Today, oil costs more than $100 a barrel.”

Later, Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., played for the executives a tape of a similar hearing five years ago at which the executives agreed to Bush’s assessment.

But this time, the oil executives said removing the incentives could tip investment decisions.

“By undermining U.S. competitiveness, they would discourage future investment in energy projects in the United States and therefore undercut job creation and economic growth,” said Rex Tillerson, chairman and CEO of Exxon Mobil Corp., which had $10.7 billion in profits the first quarter of the year. “And because they would hinder investment in new energy supplies, they do nothing to help reduce prices.”

The hearing got off to an acrimonious start with Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah, the ranking Republican on the panel, suggesting that what was to come would be a dog and pony show, and he unveiled a large picture of a dog riding a pony.

“Who is the horse and who is the dog?” Baucus asked.

“I know who the horse’s ass is,” said Hatch, adding a moment later, “I shouldn’t have said that.”

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Senate Democrats challenged leading oil industry executives Thursday to justify generous tax breaks at a time when people are paying $4 a gallon for gas.

oil-testimony-congress.jpgView full sizeAlex Brandon, The Associated PressConocoPhillips CEO James Mulva pauses Thursday while testifying before a Senate Finance Committee. Top executives from the big oil companies discussed high gasoline prices and high profits amid a push by Democratic leaders to strip billions of dollars worth of industry tax breaks.

With the CEOs of the five largest oil companies sitting before the Senate Finance Committee, Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon played a video of a 2005 congressional hearing in which oil company executives said they didn’t need generous tax breaks because oil was selling at $55 a barrel. As the hearing commenced, the price per barrel hovered just below $100.

“”You all said you didn’t need them in 2005,” Wyden said. “You seem to be telling a different story today.”

Chevron Corp. chairman and CEO John Watson said the companies don’t want special tax benefits — just the benefits that other industries get.

But what the oil company chiefs had to say was not the goal for majority Democrats eager to demonstrate before the 2012 election that they stand with consumers against oil companies recording large profits with the help of billions of dollars in tax breaks.

Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, referred to a large portrait of a dog sitting on a pony to illustrate his thoughts of the proceedings.

“All this hearing is about is providing a justification for tax increases,” Hatch said.

“For the president and some of my colleagues,” he said, “the answer is always raise taxes. Government spends too much? Raise some taxes. Health care too expensive? Raise some taxes. Gas prices too expensive? I’ve got it . . . Let’s raise some taxes.”

Democrats acknowledged that a bill to repeal the tax breaks for the companies testifying Thursday would not bring down the price of oil at the gas pump. And no one suggested that the legislation has a future beyond a talking point. Republicans have enough votes to block it in the Senate and the House is controlled by the GOP.

But Democrats insisted that allowing a hugely profitable industry to continue taking billions of dollars in tax breaks is as credible as the notion of a unicorn galloping into the hearing room.

“The issue is who shares” the burden of economic recovery, said Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont.

Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., the author of a bill that would repeal the tax breaks for the companies testifying Thursday, demanded an apology from ConocoPhillips CEO James Mulva for a press release from the company that said in the headline that the tax cut proposals were “un-American.”

Mulva refused, saying that no personal offense was intended.

“Our industry and company are already taxed heavily compared to other industries in the United States,” Mulva said.

Flog-the-CEO is a favored tactic of whichever party is in charge on Capitol Hill during a crisis — a reality well known to the powerful chiefs of Big Tobacco, automakers and Wall Street.

But Big Oil seems a particularly inviting target for Democrats seeking to defend their Senate majority in next year’s elections.

Thursday’s marquee hearing featured the CEOs of Shell Oil Co., ExxonMobil, ConocoPhillips, BP America and Chevron Corp., five companies that booked profits totaling $36 billion during the first quarter. The Democrats say that with profits that high, the big oil companies wouldn’t miss tax breaks that average $2 billion a year.

“My guess is you will be able to protect yourselves. …You’re used to prevailing,” said Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va. Oil companies, he added, are “deeply and profoundly committed to sharing nothing.”

Gasoline prices are above $4 a gallon in much of the country. The national average is about $3.96 a gallon for regular unleaded, up from $2.90 a gallon a year ago, according to AAA.

The nonpartisan Congressional Research Service concluded that eliminating the tax breaks would be unlikely to result in higher gasoline prices, which are influenced by a host of factors. The report, released Wednesday, said eliminating the tax breaks would raise about $1.2 billion in 2012. By comparison, the five oil companies had combined revenues of $1.5 trillion, and profits of more than $76 billion, in 2010, the report said.

Menendez’ bill would prohibit the five oil companies from taking a tax deduction originally aimed at boosting domestic manufacturing. The bill would also eliminate a tax break that allows oil companies to reduce their American taxes by deducting royalties paid to foreign governments.

Republicans, who now control the House and have enough votes to block legislation in the Senate, oppose tax increases. They are joined on this issue by a handful of Democrats, mainly from oil-producing states. Seven Senate Democrats joined with Republicans to defeat a tax proposal similar to Obama’s in February.

On Wednesday, Sen. Mary Landrieu of Louisiana called on fellow Democrats to “stop introducing gimmicks like this that might get you a few political points in the short run, but it is not leading us in the right direction.”

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The subject of Gregory Kallenbert’s latest film might be his favorite accident.

Kallenbert was sitting in a café in northwest Louisiana when he overheard two farmers discussing a secret natural gas reserve.

This reserve, the infamous Haynesville Shale, has an economical impact of more than one trillion dollars and is the focus of Kallenbert’s latest documentary, “Haynesville.”

The filmmaker started finding stories before the media conglomerates busted through the small towns and villages along the reserve. The out-of-towners were expecting “everyone to be rednecks, yokels and not smart,” Kallenbert said.

To get subjects to open up, he used a reliable tactic, southern hospitality.

“These are incredibly intuitive people, and they know when they’re being played,” he said. “You treat these people with love and respect, they’ll return the favor. I got people to open up in a way that I haven’t seen in a vast majority of my other projects.”

His story focuses on three people whose lives have been affected by the Shale. At the same time, the film focuses on a glaring topic: the energy problem.

“I wanted to put forth a balanced approach to the issue of energy,” he said. “It’s so polarizing. You have the ‘drill, baby, drill’ people with no conscious or the ‘no drilling at all’ people. The film presents the rational middle — where we are, where we need to go.”

“Haynesville” premieres tonight at 8:30 p.m. at The Acadiana Center for the Arts’ Local Filmmaker Showcase. For more information, visit www.acadiancenterforthearts.org or call 233-7060.

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BY THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

HOUSTON — Texas is poised to become the first state to require gas drillers to publicly disclose the chemicals they use to release natural gas from tight rock formations, a measure that could set the stage for other states and Congress to move ahead with their own initiatives to regulate hydraulic fracturing.

But environmentalists caution the bill, while a step in the right direction, remains too protective of industry.

“It’s a glass half-full kind of thing, pretty good job, pretty good legislation, but we didn’t go far enough,” said Cyrus Reed, conservation director of the Sierra Club’s Lone Star chapter.

Bill’s support strong

The measure would require mandatory disclosure of many chemicals used in the hydraulic fracturing — or “fracking” — process.

Approved Thursday by the House and taken up by the Senate, the bill in its current form has widespread support among both Republicans and Democrats, and GOP Gov. Rick Perry is expected to sign it.

Fracking, along with horizontal drilling, lets drillers penetrate tight rock formations by pressure pumping chemical-laced water into the ground and allowing oil and gas to flow out. The method has become more controversial as it is used in more places across the country to get to once out-of-reach minerals.

Some environmental groups and landowners fear fracking is causing water contamination. The industry insists it’s safe.

Texas Rep. James Keffer, the Republican energy committee chairman who helped oversee passage of the bill, said the more he worked to find a way for industry to coexist with urban residents, the more convinced he became that fracking fears had to be addressed.

Is bill tough enough?

“There are concerns: What’s going down the hole? Is it poisonous? What is it doing to the water supply?” Keffer said. “I felt like the time had to come to get it off the table.”

Environmental groups argue the bill isn’t strong enough because operators would only be required to post on a website the maximum concentrations of chemicals regulated by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. Unregulated chemicals only have to be listed without the amount used. Operators also can opt out of full disclosure if they fear trade secrets could be harmed, in which case they would only have disclose what fluids they use to the agency that oversees drilling.

Still, the law would put Texas ahead of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Congress and several other states trying to pass similar measures.

The initiative’s success in Texas — where oil and gas industry friendly Republicans hold a supermajority in the House, a majority in the Senate and fill every statewide elected office — has surprised many. The Texas Oil and Gas Association, an industry lobbyist, didn’t expect fracking chemicals to be an issue at all this session, said Debbie Hastings, the group’s vice president for environmental affairs.

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By ROBIN BRAVENDER

Joe Barton doesn’t like labels. At least not when it comes to “Big Oil.”

“I don’t think it should be a pejorative,” the Texas Republican said Thursday during a C-SPAN interview. “We’ve got this mentality on the liberal side of our political debate: Big Oil, Big Insurance, big this, big that.”

The term has gotten a lot of use this week as Senate Democrats hauled in the top executives of the five biggest U.S. oil companies Thursday to testify on efforts to repeal the industry’s tax incentives.

Besides, Barton argued, U.S. oil companies aren’t even the biggest.

“The biggest oil company, ExxonMobil, is only the fifth-largest oil company overall because the other four are run by governments,” Barton said. “So it should be something of a badge of honor that we still have companies that can compete internationally, and so it’s a little upsetting that we try to at the very beginning make it a pejorative.”

He also took umbrage with Senate Democrats’ efforts to strip those tax incentives.

“If you want to reform the tax code generically and have a debate about taxes and businesses and manufacturing in the United States generically, that’s one thing, but I think it’s wrong to just pick out any industry — whether it’s the oil industry or the automobile industry —and say, ‘You know, we shouldn’t give them the tax credits or tax advantages that we give other companies that do business in America.’”

Barton has already taken a lot of heat for his defense of Big Oil, most notably for his apology last year to BP for what he dubbed a $20 billion “shakedown” by the White House after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

Barton later apologized for his apology, and he said Thursday that he thinks BP will be held liable and punished under the law.

“I thought that it was inappropriate to do it somewhat in a cloak of secrecy with no due process and that was my point, not that BP hadn’t done anything wrong,” Barton said of his apology last June.

“They had — and they’re going through the legal process now — the appeals process, and I think ultimately they’re going to be held liable for all the damage that that oil spill did.”

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There’s a showdown over energy issues in Washington, D.C. On Thursday, the Republican-dominated House approved the third of three pieces of legislation aimed at increasing the nation’s oil and natural gas production. Meantime, the Democrat-led Senate — which grilled executives of big oil companies Thursday — plans to take up a proposal to eliminate the companies’ tax breaks.

It seems fair and reasonable for the Senate to raise such questions at a time when we’re paying much higher prices at the fuel pump while big oil companies are raking in huge profits. That said, we challenge lawmakers on both sides — Democrats and Republicans alike — to work together to keep this debate from developing into a standoff in which innocent bystanders are harmed.

Lawmakers must keep in mind the overarching need to put Louisiana back to work and decrease this nation’s dependence on foreign fuel supplies. At the same time, adequate measures must be in place to ensure there’s not another deadly and environmentally tragic oil spill off our shores. It’s a tough balancing act but one that should not be taking this long.

We’re coming up on the 13-month anniversary of the BP accident that claimed 11 lives. In its wake, President Obama imposed a moratorium on new deepwater drilling permits that, in turn, also dissuaded drilling of shallow-water wells while his administration reviewed safety recommendations. Obama lifted the ban late last year, but federal officials have since issued only a few new permits.

To combat that, the House approved a resolution Wednesday that aims to speed the issuance of offshore drilling permits in the Gulf of Mexico. The measure would extend about 100 leases, of which more than half are set to expire Dec. 31.

It also would require federal officials to act on a drilling permit within 30 days of receiving an application. Interior officials have said it would be difficult to conduct reviews and environmental assessments within 30 days. The legislation would allow the deadline to be extended by up to two 15-day periods. If an application is denied, federal officials have to provide a detailed explanation. And if they have not acted by the end of 60 days, the application is deemed approved.

Thursday, the House passed a resolution that would require the Obama administration to develop a five-year offshore leasing program in certain areas with potential oil and natural gas resources. The proposal generally is an effort to make more areas of the Outer Continental Shelf available for leasing and to increase the nation’s daily production by 3 million barrels of oil and 10 billion cubic feet of natural gas by 2027.

Both proposals were backed by six of Louisiana’s seven congressmen. The exception is District 2′s Cedric Richmond, the delegation’s lone Democrat.

And last week, the House approved a proposal to require federal officials to conduct four lease sales — 216 in the central Gulf of Mexico within four months, 218 in the western Gulf within eight months, 220 on the Outer Continental Shelf off Virginia’s coast within a year and 222 in the central Gulf by June 1, 2012.

The Senate is not scheduled to consider these proposals. And President Obama opposes the legislation.

The Senate should at least give the matters a fair hearing. And Obama should reconsider his opposition. With consumers bearing several increases in gasoline prices and after almost 13 months of examining drilling regulations, it’s time to avoid further delays to offshore exploration and production.

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By SELINA WILLIAMS

LONDON—Crude-oil futures fell after the International Energy Agency said high prices and weaker economic growth for advanced economies are eroding demand growth this year, particularly in the U.S. where $4 a gallon gasoline is likely to yield an “anemic” driving season.

However, the Paris-based agency also warned that continued oil-supply disruptions mean the market will remain tight in the second half of 2011 and the “bull run” in prices may continue.

In late morning, the front-month June Brent contract on London’s ICE futures exchange was down $1.65, or 1.5%, at $110.92 a barrel. The front-month June contract on the New York Mercantile Exchange was trading down $2.20, or 2.3%, at $96.01 a barrel.

The fall in prices in London trading hours wiped out gains from an overnight rally in Asia that were spurred by bargain hunting following losses in the U.S., analysts said. Gasoline futures plunged late Wednesday, pulling crude down with them after an unexpected increase in U.S. oil inventories.

“People were trying to pick the bottom overnight in Asia, but now we’re seeing traders have come in and said ‘No, no, no, we know better, we’ve had even worse news out this morning’ and they’ve sold it,” said Andy Riddell, head of derivatives at London Capital Group.

In its monthly oil market report, the IEA warned for a second consecutive month that high prices could damage the fragile economic recovery.

“Persistently high prices at this stage of the economic cycle may ultimately sow the seeds of their own destruction. Until then, the market confronts fundamentals that still look likely to tighten in 2011,” the IEA said, citing a drop of 1.3 million barrels a day in OPEC crude production, mainly because of disruption to Libyan exports, as the main factor behind the tight market.

The energy watchdog cut its forecast for 2011 oil demand growth this year by 190,000 barrels a day to 1.3 million barrels a day.

It also said that estimates for global oil demand showed a “marked slow-down,” with preliminary March data suggesting almost flat annual growth for the first time since summer 2009.

Although the March figures were probably distorted by events in Japan and the timing of the Easter holidays, high U.S. gasoline prices are likely to have a negative impact on the driving season there, the IEA said.

The ICE’s gas oil contract for May delivery was down $18.25, or 1.9%, at $897.50 a metric ton, while Nymex gasoline for June delivery was 1.3% lower at $3.0811 a gallon.

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