The oil and gas industry in Texas has buckled under the strain of a blast of Arctic weather that has disrupted a big pillar of the global energy market and sent crude prices to their highest levels in more than a year.
US oil prices topped $61 a barrel in early trading on Wednesday, the highest level since last January, after about half of the oil supply was knocked out in Texas, the heart of the US energy industry.
S&P Global Platts estimated that as many as 3m barrels a day of oil output had been affected. The Permian basin, one of the world’s largest oilfields that accounts for more than a quarter of total US oil supply, is operating at well under half its normal capacity.