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Harvey Delivers Economic Pounding on Texas and the Nation, and It's Still Going

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As Texas residents face the realities of the aftermath of Harvey, they and the nation will also have to recover from higher prices at the pump and other hits to the economy caused by the mega-storm.

"Texas took a beating by Hurricane Harvey but the storm is also hitting the state hard economically. It's something that economists say will spread across the nations," said Dan Celia of Financial Issues Stewardship Ministries.

Texas, and Houston in a large part are a major part of the nation's gas and energy sector - especially with a large part of the nation's oil refineries located there.

According to the Interior Department's Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement, as of Sunday nearly 22 percent of oil production in the Gulf of Mexico was shut down. That equates to a reduction of about 378,000 barrels of oil each day, about five percent of the national output.

"You're knocking out a significant portion of production with one event," Kathy Hall, executive editor of PetroChem Wire, told the Washington Post.

"The pop in gasoline prices is an immediate response to the closure of refineries on the U.S. Gulf Coast," Matt Smith, director of commodity research at Clipper Data, tells CNN.

Overall, regular unleaded gas prices are up about $0.02 from yesterday's average, but $0.05 from last week's average, Gasbuddy reports.

This week we will continue to see oil prices surge and Harvey will have a direct impact on the economy.

"Locally there will be devastation, with local stores, consumer retailers, impacting the closing of smaller boutiques that did not carry profit and loss insurance, and then national insurance rates will have an increase, but the biggest issue will be the energy surge.

 

 

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