Wilma Becomes a Hurricane; May Avoid Gulf Oil Region

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rude oil and gasoline prices fell Tuesday as forecasts showed that Hurricane Wilma — upgraded from a tropical storm on Tuesday — will move toward Florida, missing production platforms that are concentrated along the Louisiana and Texas coasts, Bloomberg reported.

Crude oil futures fell $1.16 to close at $63.20 a barrel on New York Mercantile Exchange trading, Bloomberg said.

Futures have decline 10% since reaching a record $70.85 a barrel on Aug. 30, the day after Hurricane Katrina made landfall. But prices are up 19% from a year ago.

Wilma was moving to the west-northwest at 8 mph in the northwestern Caribbean Sea on Tuesday afternoon and had sustained winds of 80 mph, the National Hurricane Center said.

Forecasters said the Category 1 hurricane could strengthen to a Category 3 and move toward Florida by the weekend, the Associated Press reported.

The storm’s projected path had it moving to the northeast later in the week, and not directly north, where it could strike the oil-producing region and refineries along the U.S. Gulf Coast, the National Hurricane Center’s Web site said.

Wilma became the Atlantic hurricane season’s 21st and last named storm; if there are any more named storms, they will be named after the Greek alphabet.