sept 28 reuters  oil prices were mixed in early asian trade on wednesday as support from us production cuts caused by hurricane ian contended with crude storage builds and a strong dollar brent crude futures fell 4 cents or 01 to 8623 per barrel by 0022 gmt while us west texas intermediate wti crude futures were up 22 cents at 7803 per barrel producers began returning workers to offshore oil platforms after shutting in output ahead of hurricane ian which entered the us gulf of mexico on tuesday and is forecast to become a dangerous category 4 storm over the warm waters of the gulf read more about 190000 barrels per day of oil production or 11 of the gulfs total were shutin according to offshore regulator the bureau of safety and environmental enforcement bsee producers lost 184 million cubic feet of natural gas or nearly 9 of daily output personnel were evacuated from 14 production platforms and rigs the bsee said ian is the first hurricane this year to disrupt oil and gas production in the us gulf of mexico which produces about 15 of the nations crude oil and 5 of dry natural gas limiting oil prices was the us dollar the dollar which typically trades inversely with oil remained near a 20year high estimates of us oil in storage also sent mixed messages about oil prices while us crude oil in storage rose by about 42 million barrels for the week ended sept 23 according to market sources on tuesday citing figures from industry group the american petroleum institute gasoline inventories fell by about 1 million barrels distillate stocks rose by about 438000 barrels according to the sources who spoke on condition of anonymity the report comes ahead of official energy information administration data on wednesday at 430 pm edt reporting by laila kearney in new york editing by leslie adler