Katrina cuts oil output by a third / Katrina pushes oil over $70

[Guest guest]

Katrina cuts oil output by a third

As

storm gathers strength and heads toward land, there's plenty to fear in the

oil patch.

August 28, 2005: 11:19 PM EDT

 

 

 

HOUSTON (Reuters) - U.S. energy companies said U.S. Gulf 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.

As of Saturday, 563,000 barrels daily crude

output had been shut in due to the threatening storm.

Shell

Oil Co., which was evacuating all 1,019 of its offshore workers in the central

and eastern Gulf on Saturday, had the bulk of closed Gulf daily oil production,

with 420,000 barrels turned off.

Shell 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.

Chalmette Refining LLC, which operates a New

Orleans-area refinery, was shutting down production in preparation for the

approach of the hurricane, which is predicted to produce winds near 131 mph

(210 kph) when it charges ashore on Monday.

Chalmette is a joint venture between Exxon Mobil Corp. and Venezuelan state

oil company Petroleos de Venezuela SA and operates a 190,000-bpd refinery 9 miles east of downtown New Orleans.

The shutdown was to be completed by Katrina's predicted landfall on

Monday afternoon, said Chalmette spokeswoman Nora Scheller.

Other southeast Louisiana refineries were

operating on Saturday but were reducing staff and preparing for possible

shutdowns, the companies said.

Ship traffic along the Mississippi River

from the Gulf of Mexico to New Orleans was halted on Saturday when ship pilots said conditions were

already unsafe to continue moving vessels along the waterway.

The U.S. Coast Guard was warning mariners of

possible waterway closures along the Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama coasts as early as Sunday afternoon.

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.

While offloading is halted, the LOOP is supplying refiners

via pipeline with crude stored on shore.

Katrina was a Category 5 hurricane on the

five-step Saffir-Simpson scale, with catastrophic winds of 175 mph (284 kph),

just before 2 p.m. EDT (1800 GMT) on Sunday, said the U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami.

Its central pressure -- a measure of a storm's intensity -- fell to

906 millibars, making Katrina the second strongest storm on record after the

Labor Day hurricane of 1935 that hit the Florida Keys. That storm recorded a

minimum central pressure of 892 millibars on landfall.

" If it stayed at this intensity, it would

be one of the two or three strongest to ever hit this country, " Ed Rappaport,

deputy director of the hurricane center, told CNN. " And on top of that of

course we have a special concern for the area -- New Orleans is below sea

level. "

Katrina was 180 miles south-southeast of the

mouth of the Mississippi River and heading northwest at 13 mph (21 kph). Hurricane force winds

could be felt 105 miles out from the center.

The hurricane center warned of destructive

winds along the Gulf Coast from the Florida-Alabama border, through Mississippi and

west to Morgan City in Louisiana, and said Katrina could bring up to 15 inches of rain.

Its track would send it through key U.S. oil and gas areas in

the Gulf of Mexico, and Katrina seemed likely to affect already sky-high gasoline

prices. Oil rigs were evacuated.

The last Category 5 to strike the area was

Hurricane Camille in 1969. Camille, which registered a minimum pressure of 909 millibars

at landfall, just missed New Orleans but devastated Louisiana and Alabama, killing hundreds. Hurricane Andrew, which destroyed the city of Homestead

south of Miami in 1992 and ranks as the costliest natural disaster in U.S. history, was also a

Category 5. Its central pressure was 922 millibars.

Katrina was originally projected to take a

path west across southern Florida, turn north in the eastern Gulf and strike the Florida Panhandle

as a minimal hurricane.

As late as Friday afternoon, many producers

were taking a wait-and-see approach common with eastern Gulf storms, where oil

and gas drilling and production are sparse.

But the storm's long drift westward

Friday afternoon and evening meant it was gaining intensity from deep, warm

Gulf waters and would not turn north in time to avoid production areas.

Katrina is expected to reach land sometime

Monday morning, according to CNN meteorologist Brad Huffines.

 

http://money.cnn.com/2005/08/28/news/economy/katrina_oil.reut/index.htm

 

 

 

 

Katrina pushes oil over $70

With

global supply tight, cuts in Gulf of Mexico production pushes oil

higher.

August 28, 2005: 11:16 PM

EDT

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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.

http://money.cnn.com/2005/08/28/news/international/bc.markets.oil.reut/index.htm

 

Dear List Members,

 

Dasha is Ve/Sa/Ve/Ve/Ve.

 

Even before reaching land, Katrina is already creating

profound changes (Venus, L12 in 8, in rashi,

and Venus, L12 in 2, in navamsha.)

 

 

 

Best wishes,

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

satva

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jorge Angelino

 

 

Rua da Sociedade Filarmónica

Perpétua Azeitonense, 29

2925-598 Azeitão

Portugal

 

 

 

 

jorge.angelino

 

 

 

 

 

 

tel:

mobile:

 

 

210813674

963916784

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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