NEW YORK, Oct. 6 (Xinhua) -- Oil prices moved higher on Tuesday as a strike in the Norwegian oil and gas industry and a looming hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico caused production disruptions.

The West Texas Intermediate (WTI) for November delivery climbed 1.45 U.S. dollars to settle at 40.67 dollars a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, while Brent crude for December delivery increased 1.36 dollars to 42.65 dollars a barrel on the London ICE Futures Exchange.

"The strike is becoming more widespread in the Norwegian oil and gas industry, where six oil and gas fields in the North Sea are now shut," lending a support to prices, Carsten Fritsch, energy analyst at Commerzbank Research, said in a note on Tuesday.

"Besides Norway, there could also be production outages in the Gulf of Mexico this week, where another hurricane has developed -- Hurricane Delta," he said.

Hurricane Delta continued to intensify on Tuesday and is expected to make landfall on the Gulf Coast later this week, according to U.S. weather authorities.

The U.S. Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement estimated that some 29.2 percent of Gulf oil production and nearly 8.6 percent of natural-gas output was shut as of Tuesday afternoon in a move for precaution. Enditem

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