Hurricane Gustav May Hit Oil, Gas Production in Gulf Harder Than Katrina

[marmar]

Gustav May Hit Gulf Platforms Harder Than Katrina (Update3)

By Jim Polson

Aug. 31 (Bloomberg) -- Hurricane Gustav threatens to hurt U.S. oil and natural-gas production and refining more severely than hurricanes Katrina and Rita did three years ago.

Gustav, downgraded to a Category 3 storm by the National Hurricane Center in Miami this morning, may strengthen to Category 4 later today and will make landfall as a ``major'' hurricane. The storm shut three-quarters of oil output in the region and refineries operated by Valero Energy Corp., the largest U.S. refiner, ConocoPhillips, Marathon Oil Corp. and Exxon Mobil Corp. There will be a special trading session today at the New York Mercantile Exchange.

``This storm will prove to be a worst-case scenario for the production region,'' Jim Rouiller, senior energy meteorologist for Planalytics.com, said yesterday in an e-mailed message. ``This storm will be more dangerous than Katrina.''

The center issued a hurricane watch from High Island, Texas, to Florida at 2 a.m. today. Gustav's winds were estimated at 150 miles (240 kilometers) per hour as it made landfall in western Cuba. While they slowed to 125 miles per hour this morning, the storm is forecast to gain strength as it passes into the central gulf today. Gustav was 425 miles southeast of the Mississippi River's mouth and traveling northwest at about 15 mph at 4 a.m.

BP, Exxon, Shell

BP Plc, Exxon Mobil and Royal Dutch Shell Plc, Europe's largest oil company, led producers shutting wells and whisking staff ashore. About 77 percent of Gulf oil output and 37 percent of natural-gas production was shut, the U.S. Minerals Management Service said in a statement yesterday. The Louisiana Offshore Oil Port, the nation's largest crude-oil terminal, closed yesterday. .....(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aT_OIrdDoBkA&refer=home

[ensho]

1. one of the reason why the oil Barons picked Palin

it will be yrs. before the Gulf oil can come back and produce

[Greg K]

2. It sure does highlight

the riskiness of offshore drilling

[SammyWinstonJack]

3. Not that I am advocating offshore drilling, I am not but how about some of these levees

to protect the oil rigs that are already in the gulf and the coastline as well?







Naw, newspapers is cheaper. :silly:

[radfringe]

4. obama's campaign needs to run this

Conservatives Echo McCain’s False Claim That Katrina Caused No Oil Spill Damage»
http://thinkprogress.org/2008/06/19/mccain-oil-katrina/
In a Tuesday speech delivered before an audience of oil executives, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) pushed to overturn the federal ban on offshore oil drilling. McCain claimed drilling is so “safe” that “not even Hurricane Katrina and Rita could cause significant spillage from battered rigs off the coasts of New Orleans and Houston.” Watch it:

http://thinkprogress.org/2008/06/19/mccain-oil-katrina/

Picking up McCain’s talking points, a growing chorus of conservatives have repeated this claim as justification for expanded drilling:

– George Will: “Hurricanes Katrina and Rita destroyed or damaged hundreds of drilling rigs without causing a large spill.”

– Wall Street Journal editorial: “Hurricanes Katrina and Rita flattened terminals across the Gulf of Mexico but didn’t cause a single oil spill.”

– Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne: “When Katrina and Rita hit the Gulf Coast where we have about 4,000 oil and gas platforms, 3,000 were in the direct line of the storms - the most significant storms we’ve seen ever - and 3,000 of those had to be shut down. We had no significant oil spill. The system worked.”

– Fox News’ Dick Morris: “And by the way, the safety concerns, Hurricane Katrina didn’t cause any leakage or any spill in the Gulf of Mexico oil wells.”

The truth is that Hurricane Katrina caused oil spillage so significant it was clearly visible from space. It also wreaked environmental havoc near the scale of the 1989 Exxon Valdez disaster.

The Wonk Room’s Brad Johnson explains the disastrous extent of Katrina’s wreckage of Gulf oil facilities.