Apart from the dramatic hike in fuel prices, there has been no knock-on effect on the local oil refineries as a result of the Hurricane Katrina disaster in America.

Texaco already exports between 30% and 40% of its Pembroke Refinery production to the United States, with at least one America-bound tanker leaving the terminal every week.

Total produces only for the UK and European market, and does not refine the gasoline grades used in America.

"Being an American company with outlets over there, and producing the petrol grades used by American vehicles, we export a lot of petrol to the States," said a Texaco spokesman.

"But our refinery is flat out with no capacity to produce more. I am not aware that we have had any cargoes diverted, although we did send one tanker carrying around 40,000 tons of gasoline to the States from our shared refinery in Rotterdam, which was in addition to our long standing requirements.

"This was in direct response to the Katrina crisis, to help our retail outlets over there.

"The disaster in the southern states has obviously had a global effect on oil prices, with the wholesale price going up around 8p a litre."

He added that the hurricane has knocked out six or seven refineries in the affected states, and this has had a major effect on American supplies.

Said a Total spokesman: "We have had maximum throughput for a long time at our Milford Haven refinery, and there has been no change in production as a result of what has happened in America."

It is well-known that the UK has been producing a surplus of petrol but just about enough diesel for home consumption for around a decade. Excess capacity has been sold elsewhere in the world over the last two or three years, but much of it is not suitable for American use.

IT WILL travel thousands of miles across seas and through pipelines, but it's at Texaco's Pembroke refinery where a blend of crude oils will finally be processed.

The refinery has been recruited to process oil taken from fields in Kazakhstan and Russia as production levels of the blend look set to rise over the next four years.

The site has been preparing itself to process the oil for several months together with members of the Eurasia business unit and Europe Downstream's Supply and Trading.

Pembroke refinery's reputation for being able to handle difficult or 'opportunity' oils has grown since its success with processing the heavy and highly acidic Doba crude oil from oil fields in Chad.

The refinery, which will soon be known as Chevron Pembroke refinery after the company announced it is to change its name by 2007, will join refineries in the Mediterranean which already successfully process the Caspian Pipeline Consortium blend.