Hurricane Ike to strengthen before hitting Texas

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Hurricane Ike will mushroom into a powerful Category 3 storm as it marches west across the Gulf of Mexico before striking the oil-rich central Texas Coast on Saturday, the U.S. National Hurricane Center forecast on Wednesday.

Ike is growing in the southeast Gulf of Mexico about 225 miles west-southwest of Key West, Florida, and about 430 miles southeast of the mouth of the Mississippi River, the NHC said in its 11 a.m. EDT report.

It is still a Category 1 storm with winds near 90 miles per hour but will intensify into a Category 3 storm with winds of 111 to 130 mph within 36 hours, the NHC forecast.

The weather models show Ike could hit anywhere along the central Texas Coast on Saturday.

Energy traders watch for storms that could enter the Gulf of Mexico and threaten U.S. oil and natural gas infrastructure along the coast.

Commodities traders likewise watch storms that could hit agriculture crops like citrus and cotton in Florida and other states along the Gulf Coast to Texas.

(Reporting by Scott DiSavino, editing by Matthew Lewis)