Companies that refine oil into gasoline and other fuels, already benefiting from market disruptions caused by Hurricane Katrina, are likely to keep seeing robust profit gains through next year, industry executives and analysts said yesterday.

Even before the storm, fuel prices and refiners' profit margins were rising to record levels because of low supplies coupled with strong demand for gasoline, diesel fuel, jet fuel and heating oil.

Katrina tightened that squeeze by knocking out much of the Gulf Coast's critical production and refining capacity. And with the rebuilding effort expected to take several months, refiners' earnings gains are expected to keep surging during 2006.

Valero Energy Corp., which became the United States' largest refiner a week ago with its $6.9 billion purchase of Premcor Inc., is "in the right business at the right time," Valero Chief Operating Officer William Klesse said at a Lehman Bros. energy conference in New York.

Although San Antonio-based Valero and others are toiling to restart refineries and production facilities damaged by the hurricane, "longer term we believe gasoline margins will continue to be strong," he said.

The price increases swelling the refiners' earnings also have sparked outrage among many motorists, lawmakers and consumer advocates, along with widespread allegations of price gouging.

Jamie Court, president of the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights in Santa Monica, Calif., said the industry hasn't built new refineries in decades and otherwise keeps supplies low, "so every disaster means a big hike in profits."

"The Congress and the statehouse need to focus on regulating (fuel) supplies in the same way they regulate electricity supplies," he said.

Meanwhile, crude oil and gasoline futures prices fell again as the Energy Department predicted that overall U.S. oil and gasoline production should return to pre-hurricane levels by December.

The benchmark U.S. grade of light crude oil for October delivery dropped $1.59 to $64.37 a barrel, and gasoline for October delivery shed 3.28 cents to $2.022 a gallon.

The department's statistics arm, the Energy Information Administration, said the speed of the Gulf Coast recovery was difficult to predict because the damage was still being assessed, and would vary depending on the pace of repairs.

About 57.4 percent of the region's oil production, and 40.4 percent of its gas output, remained shut down yesterday, the U.S. Minerals Management Service said.

A return to normal operations should be achieved by December in any case, the Energy Information Administration said in a report.

That would bring total U.S. oil production back to just under 5.4 million barrels a day, and the production of gasoline and other fuels to nearly 16.4 million barrels a day, the same levels as in August, the agency said.

Wholesale oil and gas prices came off their post-Katrina peaks after the 26-nation International Energy Agency committed 60 million barrels of oil and gasoline to the U.S. market, the White House released oil from the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve and the Environmental Protection Agency eased air-quality rules for gasoline — all of which were aimed at averting shortages.

But investors are seizing the disruption — and the refiners' bullish outlook — as an opportunity.

Valero's stock price has soared 24 percent since Katrina struck Aug. 29; it closed yesterday at $111.03 a share, up $1.62 for the day. Shares of Sunoco Inc., another major refiner, have jumped 22 percent since the hurricane and closed yesterday at $77.25 a share, down 17 cents for the session.