Jet fuel and diesel fuel prices were flat, one day after rising one cent in reaction to Chevron Corp's shutdown of a crude unit at its Los Angeles refinery.

A brief fire on Monday shut the unit, which makes jet and diesel fuel.The company said on Wednesday that it had not set a restart date for the unit. Other units were unscathed by the fire, the company said.

July jet fuel sold for 43 cents a gallon in Los Angeles, and were offered at 43.50 cents, flat from Tuesday.

San Francisco jet was offered one cent lower. Meanwhile, the traders said that low sulphur diesel was offered as high as 44 cents, also steady with Tuesday levels.

In bunker markets, Los Angeles prices remained firm around $76 to $78 a tonne.

Prices have been tightened since then on increased demand, traders said."Part of the problem is we (California) sold to Mexico, whichtook barrels out of the market and then there was quite a bit of demand that we had n't seen for a while," a trader said.

Separately, weekly inventory report had little effect on the West Coast spot markets, market sources said.

Gasoline supplies were relatively steady on the West Coast, with gasoline stockpiles off a slight 217,000 barrels last week, according to data from the nation's leading oil trade group, the American Petroleum Institute (API).

Gasoline stockpiles fell to 29.8 million barrels, but remained higher than year-ago levels.

Meanwhile, US energy futures prices continued to rise in ACCESS overnight trade on Wednesday, driven by falling gasoline supplies and turmoil in oil-producing Nigeria, traders said.

Oil and gasoline prices extended a daytime rally that pushed August crude oil futures above $14 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX).

On ACCESS, August crude rose eight cents a gallon to $13.93by 1620 PDT, on light volume of 586 lots.

The rising prices were "acontinuation of supportive (inventory) data and Nigeria's news," an ACCESS trader said.

The United States federal government and industry data showed sharply lower gasoline supplies, which lifted prices Tuesday and Wednesday.

After a key trade group showed gasoline down 1.4 million barrels to 218 million barrels, government data on Wednesday stirred markets by reporting a sharper, 4.2-million-barrel decline in US gasoline stocks.

Separately, riots in oil-producing Nigeria boosted oil markets from London to New York. The turmoil followed the death of Nigerian politician Moshood Abiola on Tuesday.

Abiola was about to be released after being arrested five years earlier for declaring himself president of the West African nation. The declaration followed the annulled 1993 elections.

Oil companies in the West African nation said oil production remained steady despite rioting in parts of the country.

ACCESS traders said volume overnight was too light for them to forecast the market's direction. "It's atough call with such light volume," a trader said."It (crude) could have traded up on just a few lots."

Traders forecast prices to remain little changed overnight.

August gasoline futures reached 47.05 cents a gallon, up 0.26 cent a gallon by 1620 PDT on thin volume of 51 lots.

Front-month heating oil contracts traded at 37.82 cents a gallon, up 0.18 cent a gallon amid volume of 118 lots.