Diesel prices continued their steady climb Friday, Sept. 23, as the oil industry anxiously watched Hurricane Rita make her way toward refineries in Texas and Louisiana.

ProMiles reported a national average price for diesel of $2.806 per gallon Friday, up more than 2 cents from Thursday.

Flying J reported shortages in Texas, Florida and Georgia, and one station in North Dakota was closed when it ran out of fuel.

Travel Centers of America, which just ended its Hurricane Katrina rationing a week earlier, was back to rationing Friday in anticipation of Rita. The company’s Web site reported limits of 50 gallons per truck at stops in Texas, Louisiana, Alabama and Florida. TA was also distributing red-dyed diesel fuel at one stop in Mississippi.

Pilot officials said Sept. 22 they closed four stations in Texas – Houston, Baytown, Orange and Sulphur. And Petro officials closed a location in Beaumont.

Petro also reported shortages at some stations in Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky and Mississippi.

The price of crude oil, meanwhile, continued to drop as Rita was downgraded to a Category 4 and the National Hurricane Center said it most likely would drop to a Category 3 by the time it hits land.

Prices for light, sweet crude settled around the $64 per barrel mark in midday trading Sept. 23 on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

The Associated Press reported that traders were expecting less damage to refineries from Hurricane Rita than there was from Hurricane Katrina because the refineries in the path of Rita are on higher ground.