The spill was caused by a rupture in a storage tank at a nearby New Jersey refinery run by Motiva, part-owned by oil giant Shell, it said.

The US Coast Guard was overseeing the cleanup effort, which involved around 100 workers helping to place containment booms around the spill, CNN said.

Neither the Coast Guard nor Shell was immediately available for comment.

The massive cyclone carved a path of devastation across the US northeast on Monday and Tuesday, flooding lower Manhattan and much of the New Jersey coastline and leaving millions without electricity across several states.