Oil Prices Rise as Tropical Storm Bears Down on Gulf Coast

The price of crude oil closed just shy of $60 Monday as Tropical Storm Cindy threatened to disrupt oil supplies in the Gulf of Mexico.

The price closed at $59.59 on the New York Mercantile Exchange as Cindy moved toward the Louisiana coast late Tuesday. The storm had maximum sustained winds of 70 miles per hour, just shy of hurricane strength, and was expected to make landfall sometime before Wednesday morning.

A second system, Tropical Storm Dennis, was moving into the Gulf from the southern Carribbean and was expected to strengthen into a hurricane by Thursday morning, according to the National Hurricane Center's Tropical Prediction Center.

Last year, several tropical storms and hurricanes battered Florida and the Gulf Coast states, raising fears that oil supplies could be disruptions.

n its alert about Dennis, NHC said that it was the earliest into hurricane season that four tropical systems had become large enough to name. Storms are typically named when the grow to have maximum sustained winds of 39 mph, according to NHC.

Bloomberg said investors are speculating that oil prices could rise as high as $80 a barrel if there were a major disruption to U.S. supplies. Crude prices hit a record high of $60.95 on June 27.

Because of Tropical Storm Cindy, CNBC reported some oil companies were shuttering their operations in the Gulf until the storm passed.