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rude oil prices fell back from an all-time high of more than $70 a barrel for the first time in overnight trading, following Hurricane Katrina's landfall on the Gulf Coast Monday, news services reported.

Benchmark light sweet crude oil futures closed at $67.20 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange after hitting a record $70.80 a barrel in overnight electronic trading, Bloomberg reported.

The previous high record was $68 a barrel, set in overnight trading before the Nymex opened last Thursday.

President Bush was reportedly considering releasing oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to make up for production shortfalls. (Click here for related coverage.)

The president last year ordered the Energy Department to release 5.4 million barrels of oil from the SPR in the wake of Hurricane Ivan, which swept through the Gulf in September.

Oil prices jumped 22% following Hurricane Ivan, and similar numbers could follow in the wake of Katrina, Bloomberg reported.

Katrina shut down an estimated 1 million barrels of refining capacity and sharply curtailed offshore production in the Gulf region, which provides about half of U.S. refining capacity, the Associated Press reported.

The Louisiana Offshore Oil Port, the largest oil import terminal in the United States, evacuated all workers and stopped unloading ships on Saturday, AP said.