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Here is a link to an excellent local news feed from the Na' OLeans area.
Preparations for Katrina continue.
MSNGulf of Mexico crude oil output was cut by more than one-third on Saturday as Hurricane Katrina appeared poised to charge through central production areas toward New Orleans.
The Gulf of Mexico is home to roughly a quarter of U.S. domestic oil and gas output, with a capacity to produce about 1.5 million barrels per day of crude and 12.3 billion cubic feet per day of gas.
S also said 1.345 billion cubic feet per day, or Bfd, of natural gas had been shut by Saturday. Total daily Gulf natural gas output shut on Saturday was 1.9 billion cubic feet.
. . .
The Louisiana Offshore Oil Port LLC stopped offloading tankers in the Gulf of Mexico at midday on Saturday. The LOOP, which is the only U.S. offshore oil port, takes an average 1 million barrels in foreign crude from tankers in the Gulf.
Great, just great.
Here is a link to an excellent local news feed from the Na' OLeans area.
Preparations for Katrina continue.
Ivan killed 6% of the entire production for the year out of the US last year. This is looking really ing simmillar.
Oil prices are likely to skyrocket on monday and are more than likely going to breech 70 per barrell.
Yep, if you need gas better go fill up asap.
if you fill up now, you will save maybe 1 dollar.. your only hope would be to buy a swimming pool size gas tank! haha...
There is A LOT of refining capacity around New Orleans. Not quite like the Houston/Texas City complex, but it is major. I wouldn't rull out an open of over $70 for crude tomorrow, and when the thing hits I'd say we could push $75. Some of the offshore platforms had some trouble with the last hurricanes that came through (Dennis, I guess) - it will be interesting to see how they stand up against this.
Also, New Orleans is a major port - there are a lot of goods going in and out of that port... we could be looking at some significant inflationary pressures aside from just higher petroleum prices.
You're looking at a lot more than a dollar. The early forecasts are for gas prices to jump 20-30 CENTS per gallon. You do the math.f you fill up now, you will save maybe 1 dollar.. your only hope would be to buy a swimming pool size gas tank! haha..
Last edited by Aggie Hoopsfan; 08-28-2005 at 01:26 PM.
we'll go with .20 a gallon increase. .20x20 gallon gas tank. 4 bux saved if you drive a large vehicle... i guess it is better than nothing. but when you run out, you will still be paying the higher prices...
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050828/...ne_katrina_oil
Katrina Targeting U.S. Oil Operations
By JUSTIN BACHMAN, AP Business Writer
51 minutes ago
NEW YORK - With crude oil prices already at record levels, a hurricane targeted the heart of America's oil and refinery operations Sunday, shutting down an estimated 1 million barrels of daily production and threatening to curtail refining activity in the region.
Katrina, a Category 5 storm expected to strike near New Orleans early Monday, was churning through the Gulf of Mexico. The area is crucial to the nation's energy infrastructure — offshore oil and gas production, import terminals, pipeline networks and numerous refining operations throughout southern Louisiana and Mississippi.
The hurricane followed a path similar to the one taken last September by Ivan, which caused heavy damage and reduced the region's output for months. Yet Katrina's 175-mph wind was fiercer.
Oil companies have evacuated workers and closed at about 1 million barrels of daily production in the Gulf, but that amount could be higher because not every producer reports data, said Peter Beutel, an oil analyst with Cameron Hanover.
"It's not looking real friendly here. This is unmitigated, bad news for consumers," he said.
Gasoline prices could see the largest es because so many refineries in the region could be shut down by flooding, power outages, or both, energy analysts said.
The U.S. has ample crude oil supplies, even if major hurricane destruction trims Gulf oil output and foreign imports, but refining capacity is extraordinarily tight. As a result, prices for gasoline, heating oil, jet fuel and other products have flirted with records and could go even higher this week.
"If this thing knocks out significant quan ies of refining capacity ... we're going to be in deep, dark trouble," said Ed Silliere, vice president of risk management at Energy Merchant LLC in New York.
The market has been on edge for months, with traders and speculators buying on the slightest fear. With Katrina, all those fears could be realized, Beutel said.
"Basically I could spill a can of oil at my local gas station and you'd see the price of crude go up by $1 per barrel," he said, predicting futures would likely top $70 per barrel in coming sessions.
Crude settled at $66.13 a barrel Friday on the New York Mercantile Exchange, down $1.36 after hitting $68 last week.
In many ways, Katrina was expected to be inconsequential to the energy industry, with many traders selling on Friday as the storm moved across Florida and was seen as moving north and striking the Florida Panhandle as a tropical storm with little impact. That all changed Saturday, when the system gained power and charged west, directly into areas of offshore oil production.
ChevronTexaco Corp. completed evacuations of all workers in the eastern and central Gulf of Mexico and nonessential workers in the western Gulf late Saturday, company spokesman Matt Carmichael said.
Chevron has about 2,100 employees and contractors working in the Gulf, Carmichael said. Chevron will continue to produce 90 percent of its normal production by remote as long as weather cooperates, he said.
The Louisiana Offshore Oil Port, which processes loads from tankers too large for mainland ports, evacuated all workers and stopped unloading ships on Saturday morning said Mark Bugg, the terminal's manager of scheduling. The LOOP, 20 miles offshore, is the nation's largest oil import terminal and handles 11 percent of U.S. oil imports.
Royal Dutch-S Group evacuated more than 1,000 offshore workers by Saturday. Only those in the far west remained, the company said on its Web site. BP PLC and ExxonMobil Corp. also brought workers ashore Saturday.
S estimated 420,000 barrels of oil and 1.35 million cubic feet of gas per day will be shut in at its central and eastern Gulf facilities. Exxon Mobil said it has ceased daily production of 3,000 barrels of oil and 50 million cubic feet of gas.
Valero Energy Corp. evacuated all but a few workers at its 260,000-barrel-a-day St. Charles refinery on Saturday. Murphy Oil Corp. also shut down its 120,000-barrel-a-day Meraux, La., refinery, and Exxon Mobil Corp. planned to shut down its 183,000-barrel-a-day refinery in Chalmette, La.
Motiva Enterprises, a joint venture of Royal Dutch S PLC and state-owned Saudi Arabian Oil Co., began implementing hurricane contingency plans at its 225,000-barrel-a-day Norco refinery on Saturday. Motiva also was exploring contingencies for its 235,000-barrel-a-day Convent refinery, about 45 miles west of New Orleans, Dow Jones Newswires reported.
Just checked on electronic trading...
October WTI has had a few trades at $70.50...
drill and refine the out of Alaska....
Just filled up for 2.58 gal. Last of the "cheap" gas.
filled up for 2.45 at HEB last night...
I think we can say goodbye to new orleans... maybe San Antonio will get a NFL team after all.
SYDNEY (Reuters) - U.S. oil prices surged to a record above $70 a barrel on Monday as one of the country's biggest storms tore through the U.S. Gulf of Mexico, forcing oil producers and refiners to shut down operations.
U.S. crude oil futures soared nearly $5 a barrel in opening trade to touch a fresh peak of $70.80 a barrel, surpassing last week's $68 high to the highest price since the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX) began trading contracts in 1983.
It later traded up $3.42 a barrel, 5.2 percent, at $69.55.
Oil product and natural gas prices also shot higher to records, with gasoline soaring 10 percent to $2.13 a gallon and heating oil rocketing past $2 a gallon for the first time. Natural gas prices were up 20 percent.
Prices leapt as Hurricane Katrina, the eleventh named storm of what is expected to be an unusually severe season, threatened to do lasting damage to the vital U.S. oil and refining region, further straining an industry that has struggled to keep up with two years of strongly rising oil demand.
More than 40 percent of all U.S. Gulf of Mexico crude oil production was reported closed down as a result of the hurricane, with the total expected to rise significantly as more operators report affected production to the U.S. government on Monday.
Katrina revved up to a maximum Category 5 hurricane at the weekend, far stronger than last year's Hurricane Ivan, which tore up platforms and pipelines along a very similar path through the Gulf, disrupting oil production for months.
The U.S. Gulf of Mexico normally pumps about 1.5 million barrels per day (bpd) of crude, a quarter of domestic output and equivalent to nearly 2 percent of global oil production.
"This is certainly reminiscent of Ivan last year," said David Thurtell, commodity strategist at the Commonwealth Bank of Australia.
"We can expect two months of lost production, and coming in the peak demand period this is the worst possible news. The only way we can avoid yet higher prices is if
President Bush releases supply from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve."
The administration has said in the past it would release oil from the 700-million-barrel SPR only during a serious supply disruption, but has never given further details.
In New Orleans, hundreds of thousands of residents were advised to leave as Katrina was expected to make landfall near the low-lying Gulf Coast city around sunrise on Monday.
Apart from the impact on crude production, dealers fear the storm will tighten supplies of consumer fuels. Gasoline stockpiles are already at the low end of their seasonal norm.
Seven southeast Louisiana refineries with a combined daily refining capacity of 1.449 million barrels of crude oil had shut down ahead of Katrina making landfall, an amount equal to 8.5 percent of total U.S. refining capacity.
Two of those refineries near New Orleans -- the 190,000 bpd Chalmette Refining LLC and Murphy Oil Corp's 120,000 bpd Meraux plant -- appeared to be directly in the path of the storm.
NO CUSHION
Dealers are particularly concerned about damage as the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (
OPEC) is already pumping at near its full capacity, leaving it little room to make up for any lasting outages.
OPEC's president said at the weekend that soaring prices were of rising concern to the cartel, which controls half the world's oil exports, but that they should begin to eases as higher costs begin to curb demand.
"OPEC will be exploring various options for the September meeting which will hopefully contribute to moderate prices," said OPEC President Sheikh Ahmad al-Fahd al-Sabah, also Kuwait's oil minister, in an English language statement in Kuwait City.
He did not elaborate on the nature of these options. OPEC meets on Sept. 19 to chart output policy.
Production elsewhere in the world was also under strain, with
Iran's 90,000 barrel-per-day Nowruz oilfield, being developed by Royal Dutch/S , shut down owing to technical problems, a senior Iranian oil official was quoted as saying on Saturday.
And in Ecuador, where output has only just returned to normal after being hobbled by a week-long protest, activists vowed on Sunday to resume protests within the next 48 hours if energy firms to not agree to increase local investment.
I filled up the other day at $2.69. That sucked enough, now I'm reading that we can expect a 20 cent increase within a few days? ouch.
this hurricane is all shrub's fault!
yeah...and this whole war for oil policy hasn't helped us much!
"whole war for oil policy hasn't helped us much!"
Quit complaining, the war is working grea.
The war for oil is intended to help the oil companies, not us.
Let's throw some politics into the Katrina equation:
Best Of New OrleansBush has slashed Clinton's Disaster Mitigation Program.
"...Among emergency specialists, 'mitigation' -- the measures taken in advance to minimize the damage caused by natural disasters -- is a crucial part of the strategy to save lives and cut recovery costs. But since 2001, key federal disaster mitigation programs, developed over many years, have been slashed and tossed aside. FEMA's Project Impact, a model mitigation program created by the Clinton administration, has been canceled outright. Federal funding of post-disaster mitigation efforts designed to protect people and property from the next disaster has been cut in half. Communities across the country must now compete for pre-disaster mitigation dollars.
As a result, some state and local emergency managers say, it's become more difficult to get the equipment and funds they need to most effectively deal with disasters. In Louisiana, requests for flood mitigation funds were rejected by FEMA this summer. (See sidebar.) In North Carolina, a state also regularly threatened by hurricanes and floods, FEMA recently refused the state's request to buy backup generators for emergency support facilities. And the budget cuts have halved the funding for a mitigation program that saved an estimated $8.8 million in recovery costs in three eastern North Carolina communities alone after 1999's Hurricane Floyd.
Consequently, the residents of these and other disaster-prone states will find the government less able to help them when help is needed most, and both states and the federal government will be forced to shoulder more recovery costs after disasters strike.
In addition, the White House has pushed for privatization of essential government services, including disaster management, and merged FEMA into the Department of Homeland Security -- where, critics say, natural disaster programs are often sidelined by counter-terrorism programs. Along the way, morale at FEMA has plummeted, and many of the agency's most experienced personnel have left for work in other government agencies or private corporations..."
More:
The Best Of New Orleans"Before FEMA was condensed into Homeland Security Š it responded much more quickly," says Walter Maestri, director of Jefferson Parish's Office of Emergency Management. Maestri has worked with FEMA for eight years. "Truthfully, you had access to the individuals who were the decision-makers. The FEMA administrator had Cabinet status. Now, you have another layer of bureaucracy. FEMA is headed by an assistant secretary who now has to compete with other assistant secretaries of Homeland Security for available funds. And elevating houses is not as sexy as providing gas masks."
Maestri is still awaiting word from FEMA officials as to why Louisiana, despite being called the "floodplain of the nation" in a 2002 FEMA report, received no disaster mitigation grant money from FEMA in 2003 ("Homeland Insecurity," Sept. 28). Maestri says the rejection left emergency officials around the state "flabbergasted."
I filled up today at 2.41 a gallon. I was surprised it was that low and stayed that low for a few days...until Monday.
Oil is currently at $69.86. You can check the current price here.
This is a scenario more in-line with tapping the federal reserve, but unfortunately the bottleneck would be refining, not crude oil supply.
how convenient
does Clandestino want oil prices to get/stay high?
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