Sitting Ducks In The Gulf

Submitted by Charles Frost on Sun, 09/07/2008 - 19:12.

Sitting Ducks In The Gulf: Hurricane Intensity And The Risk Of Long-Term Impacts On Oil & Gas Prices

John Laumer, Philadelphia

hurricane gustav's path image

A recent guest post from Rocky Mountain Institute points out how vulnerable the USA remains to hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico, citing hurricane Gustave as an example. This current post's graphic dramatically displays the risk. The more intense a future hurricane is, the greater the chance of in inland incursion (per the image) doing long term physical damage to refinery equipment and pipelines.

Via::USEIA, EIA Report on Hurricane Impacts on U.S. Energy

Heres' an excerpt from the Minerals Management Service explaining how lucky the nation was with Gustav causing little physical damage.

Over the next few days, companies will be completing their damage assessments to petroleum infrastructure. As long as companies continue to report no long-term damage, crude oil prices are not likely to spike significantly higher due to Hurricane Gustav

From: http://www.treehugger.com/files/2008/09/siting-ducks-gulf-hurricane-risk.php

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*** It appears that Hurricake Ike is headed directly into the thickest part of the oil platforms next week. 

It also looks like we'll be going back to $4/gallon gasoline (or more) real soon.

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Not to mention ecological devastation

Submitted by Norm Roulet on Sun, 09/07/2008 - 22:39.

 Fascinating map and posting, Bill. I've had friends who worked on them, but I never had a picture in my mind of the extent of oil rigs in the Gulf. 

Who really cares about the price of oil... imagine the ecological disaster that would be caused by a few dozen of these rigs toppling over... a few refineries flooding into the Mississippi...

Perhaps it will soon be time to evacuate the Gulf Coast for good.

Disrupt IT