Gasoline prices hit two-year highs on Monday as massive floods caused by Hurricane Harvey forced refineries across the US Gulf Coast to shut down.

In crude oil markets, Brent futures were pushed up by pipeline blockades in Libya, but US crude futures eased.

Spot prices for US gasoline futures surged 7 percent to a peak of $1.7799 per gallon, the highest level since late July 2015.

Texas is home to 5.6 million barrels of refining capacity per day, and Louisiana has 3.3 million barrels. Over 2 million barrels per day of refining capacity were estimated to be offline as a result of the storm.

About 22 percent, or 379,000 barrels per day (bpd), of Gulf production was idled due to the storm as of yesterday afternoon, according to the US Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement. There may also be around 300,000 bpd of onshore US production shut in, trading sources said.

"There may be meaningful and long-term damage to Texas' refining capacity," said Jeffrey Halley, senior market analyst at futures brokerage OANDA.

To avoid a fuel shortage, US traders were seeking to import oil product cargoes from North Asia to the United States, several refining and shipping sources told Reuters on Monday.

In crude, US West Texas Intermediate (WTI) futures were at $47.71 a barrel at 0305 GMT, down 16 cents, or 0.3 percent, from their last settlement.

"It may well be that the market feels the choke point in petroleum's value chain is not (crude) production, but refined products," Halley said.

If US oil production is little affected, there could be excess crude with refiners unable to process it to produce fuel.

In international oil markets, Brent crude futures were stronger at $52.58 per barrel, up 17 cents, or 0.3 percent as Libyan pipeline blockades prevented three oilfields from supplying crude.