There may be more cycles of hyperventilation yet to come as Hurricane Rita blows through the Gulf of Mexico, but the DOE data for last week was a calming influence.

It's a new version of the butterfly effect. A hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico can lead to higher prices around the world. That's how vulnerable oil markets are today to events outside of our control. And it shows how little room there is for errors.

Hurricane Katrina damaged platforms and ports and curtailed production at refineries in the Gulf of Mexico, the source of almost a third of U.S. oil output, ... The severe damage to our nation’s energy infrastructure is undoubtedly raising energy costs; however, we need to ensure that Americans are protected from businesses that may chose to take advantage of this tragedy.

Already we are seeing e-mails touting stocks on the basis of hurricane activity in the Gulf (of Mexico).

I was looking for a rebound in imports as some of the activity along the Gulf Coast came back to normal.

There isn't the spare capacity to make up for the missing production in the Gulf of Mexico. OPEC used to have 4 to 5 million barrels of spare capacity. That's down to about 1.5 million barrels a day this year.