Hurricane Ike Situation Report # 15, U.S. Department of Energy

Department of Energy ^ | DOE

[thackney]

Electric Customer Outages:

Louisiana - 12,287

Kentucky - 19,244

Ohio - 47,825

Texas - 797,982

- - - - - - -

Crude Oil Production Shut-In: 1,160,174 (b/d)

Natural Gas Production Shut-in: 5,576 (mmcf/d)

Refinery Capacity Shut down: 2,268,320 (b/d)

- - - - - - - -

As of 5:00 AM EDT, September 22, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission reported that Entergy’s River Bend nuclear unit in LA began its restart. The unit was shutdown on September 1 on the approach of Hurricane Gustav.

As of 8:00 AM EDT September 21, vessels with drafts over 34 feet are limited to daylight transit only from Sims Bayou to the Houston ship channel turning basin. Vessels in the Sabine and Neches Rivers going into the Port Arthur area are limited to drafts of 36 feet in the day and 30 feet at night. Part of the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway (GIWW) in TX has re-opened, but it is still closed from mile marker 350 to 319 and has some closures in LA as well. There are some tow and horsepower restrictions from mile marker 253 to 319. The Calcasieu Channel is open to vessels with a draft of 39' or less. On September 19, a safety zone went into effect for the Lower Mississippi River above mile marker 191 to about mile marker 230 for vessels with a draft greater than 30 feet; they are limited to daylight hours only. Port of Pascagoula is still limiting tankers with drafts greater than 36 feet to occasional daylight transits.

Gasoline stations continue to re-open in the hurricane affected areas as power is restored. As of 3:30 PM September 21, approximately 90 percent of Shell-branded stations in Houston and Beaumont were now open, which is up from September 20 when 75 percent of their gasoline stations were reported open.

A total of 262 production platforms, or 36.5 percent of the Gulf’s 717 manned platforms, remain evacuated. Personnel from 6 rigs, representing 5.0 percent of those operating in the region, remain evacuated.

According to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ), Pasadena Refining reported that its refinery in Pasadena, TX planned to begin restart on or about September 20. Motiva and BP both reported to the TCEQ that they planned to restart units on Sunday morning September 21 at their shutdown refineries in Port Arthur, TX and Texas City, TX respectively. None of these three restarts have been confirmed. See Situation Report #13 for list of refineries. Nine refineries in Texas, with a total operable capacity of 2.3 million b/d, remain shut down due to Hurricane Ike including the Pasadena Refining, Pasadena, TX, Motiva Port Arthur, TX and BP Texas City, TX refineries.

As of 8:00 AM EDT, September 22, Marathon reported that power had been restored to its 76,000 b/d Texas City, Texas, refinery and that it was in the process of repairing equipment. The refinery is still shut down.

As of 10:15 AM EDT September 22, eleven of the 26 major natural gas pipelines in the Gulf Coast area continue to report complete shut-in of their systems. The remaining pipelines report that portions of their systems remain at reduced levels of gas flow due to Hurricane Ike. Damage assessments continue to be performed both on onshore and offshore facilities and the pipelines continue to provide updates to their customers on those points along the systems that were impacted and are now approved to flow gas as the integrity of the line was verified.

There are 39 major natural gas processing plants in the path of Hurricane Ike with a total operating capacity of 17.7 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d). As of 9:30 AM EDT September 22, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) has confirmed that 8 plants remain shut down which includes those plants still impacted from Gustav, totaling an operating capacity of 5.08 Bcf/d (just under 30 percent of the capacity in Hurricane Ike’s path). In addition, EIA reports 22 plants have resumed operations at reduced or normal levels with a total operating capacity of 8.73 Bcf/d. Eight plants are capable to restart (totaling 3.65 Bcf/d operating capacity) once power is restored and/or upstream gas flow are sufficient.