New York's main contract, light sweet crude for delivery in August, jumped 1.70 dollars to close at 60.62 dollars a barrel, off a high of 61.25 dollars.

In London, the price of Brent North Sea crude oil for delivery in August gained 1.38 dollars to end at 58.82 dollars a barrel.

Dennis was the first hurricane of this year's season in the Atlantic. While killing at least 57 people in the Caribbean and five in two US southern states, it largely spared the Gulf of Mexico.

But fears were mounting that oil platforms could be vulnerable to the next tempest on its way, Tropical Storm Emily, which the US National Hurricane Center in Miami said has the potential to become a hurricane soon.

Fimat analyst Mike Fitzpatrick said the oil price rally "is indicative of the nervousness in the market regarding the potential supply threat".

Oil workers were evacuated from Gulf of Mexico facilities on Friday in the face of the threat from Dennis but have since begun returning to work.

British oil giant BP said that its new oil platform Thunder Horse was listing after Dennis swept through the regions but stressed there had been no leaks or injuries.

The BP platform, located 150 miles (250 kilometres) southeast of New Orleans, was due to start production at the end of 2005.

"Early reports confirmed that the platform is listing an estimated 20-30 degrees," the company said in a statement.

The Gulf of Mexico contains roughly 25 percent of the United States' total crude production capacity and pumps approximately 1.5 million barrels per day.

The evacuation of rigs led to a production loss of around 4.04 million barrels of crude per day over the July 8-11 period, according to the US government's Mineral Management Service.

The loss of production "will still have an effect on the stock figures this week", Sucden analysts said.

The Department of Energy was to release a closely-watched weekly snapshot of US crude inventories on Wednesday.

Refco analyst Marshall Steeves predicted a fall of as much as three million barrels of crude oil "because of all the shut-ins last week with Dennis and (Tropical Storm) Cindy in the Gulf of Mexico".

"Traders generally expect lower inventory levels for crude and even for gasoline," said Victor Shum, a Singapore-based partner with US energy consultancy Purvin and Gertz.

"Market sentiment generally is still (positive on prices) because of the tight supply situation... The market will therefore remain cautious and react to any short-term news," Shum added.

"The market tends to react on the upside to potential threats such as the threat of new hurricanes."

All rights reserved. � 2005 Agence France-Presse. Sections of the information displayed on this page (dispatches, photographs, logos) are protected by intellectual property rights owned by Agence France-Presse. As a consequence, you may not copy, reproduce, modify, transmit, publish, display or in any way commercially exploit any of the content of this section without the prior written consent of Agence France-Presse.

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