Short-Term Energy Outlook

EIA ^ | September 8, 2005 | US Government

[BOBTHENAILER]

Hurricane Katrina

The possibility of energy market disruption amid this very active hurricane season turned to reality with the arrival of Katrina. In this issue, EIA examines some plausible paths to recovery.

The Gulf of Mexico coast region is a major oil and natural gas supply center for the United States with significant offshore oil and natural gas production, refining capacity, and petrochemical facilities, and serves as a major import hub and nexus for pipeline infrastructure. In the Gulf coast region, Federal offshore crude oil production accounts for 1.5 million barrels per day (29 percent of total U.S. production); crude oil refining capacity accounts for about 8.0 million barrels per day (47 percent of total U.S. production); and offshore natural gas production accounts for about 10 billion cubic feet per day (19 percent of total U.S. production). A significant portion of the Gulf coast’s petroleum products—gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel—is shipped to Eastern U.S. markets through the Colonial and Plantation pipelines or transported to Midwest markets by pipeline or the Mississippi River.

Hurricane Katrina caused significant direct damage to offshore rigs, refineries, pipelines, and ports in the Gulf of Mexico , with wide-scale electricity outages and flooding exacerbating the already devastated infrastructure, compounded by the evacuation of thousands of employees. Katrina initially reduced oil supplies by an estimated 1.4 million barrels per day and natural gas supplies by an estimated 8.8 billion cubic feet per day (bcfd) due to shut-ins as well as direct damage. In addition, a bout 1.9 million barrels per day of crude oil refining capacity was shut down as Katrina approached. Following the storm a number of other refineries were forced to reduce operating rates because of disruptions to oil supply and product distribution systems and electricity outages.

Excerpt, more: Short Term Energy Outlook

[BOBTHENAILER]

This is posted in an effort to try to educate all the FR raving lunatics who actually believe price gouging stories, BIG OIL conspiracy theories, price fix necessity, increase fuel taxes and on and on and on, ad nauseum. I will shortly post another government website that is devoted to natural gas for more information for what we are faced with near-term, regarding heating bills and electrical generation, etc. IT'S NOT ALL BAD NEWS.

[BOBTHENAILER]

Even though its a guv'mint source, it is usually pretty good.

Could be a tough winter, but everybody I know in the industry is bustin' a$$ to drill wherever we CAN.

Naturally, enviros and left wing Guuv org's are putting the brakes on as fast as you can say FREEZING CONSUMERS THIS WINTER.

[Grampa Dave]

"Could be a tough winter, but everybody I know in the industry is bustin' a$$ to drill wherever we CAN."

"No! America can't have any more drilling for evil oil and gas. Let the peons freeze to death this winter!" Sarcasm off, but this will be the response of Rat senators and of course the Limo Enviralist Racists.

[BOBTHENAILER]

Sarcasm off, but this will be the response of Rat senators and of course the Limo Enviralist Racists.

Heard on Rush the other day that RAT Sen. Ben Nelson (you know, the moderate), says that BIG OIL will rush to drill more in the Gulf and he promises to stop it with a defense rider that will take any additional production and dedicate it to the military.

You nailed it GD, they are showing their true colors in the face of the worst natural disaster to hit this country ever.

[Grampa Dave]

Liberals and vile enviralists should be banned from using any petro product directly or indirectly. The indirect would involve any food product or anything else that was brought to market via petro transportation.

[BOBTHENAILER]

perfect solution

[snowsislander]

Heard on Rush the other day that RAT Sen. Ben Nelson (you know, the moderate), says that BIG OIL will rush to drill more in the Gulf and he promises to stop it with a defense rider that will take any additional production and dedicate it to the military.

Yes, we need to push to open up Florida's Gulf Coast now (and it would be even better if we could have refinery operations brought up there also), while people have good visibility of the problem. I think that the political winds have a much better chance of shifting now.

[Grampa Dave]

Suggest that solution to the next rat or enviral who is screaming at you about evil oil/gas/coal.

[sono]

If they dedicate it to the military, the Commander in Chief will have control ...

[Southack]

Hey, I'm doing my part for my country. Just finished putting a pump jack unit on a Barnett Shale well on my ranch. 51bpd for the first 24 hours (and a lot of frac water, too), 66bpd for the second full day (and 246mcf gas, with a connecting pipeline being finished this month). OK, that's a pretty tiny well in the grand scheme of life (big for me, though), but I'm producing more than I'm consuming so I'm officially a CONTRIBUTOR to the solution rather than to the problem.

That being said, we've got to start refining coal into coal oil and gasoline. We've got enough domestic coal to eliminate imported crude oil altogether. Economically, the coal is a bit too deep on my land for me to have a realistic shot at profiting directly, but our nation needs the coal solution more than I need the money.

Coal oil ran WW2 Germany, Apartheid South Africa during sanctions, and China has just opened up their first large coal oil refinery (so the handwriting is on the wall).

[Southack]

"Yes, we need to push to open up Florida's Gulf Coast now (and it would be even better if we could have refinery operations brought up there also), while people have good visibility of the problem. I think that the political winds have a much better chance of shifting now."

One possibility is that we re-write the state offshore boundary distance. Shorten it. Then we aren't drilling in state areas. Problem solved.

Of course, we've also got to federalize prohibitions against states refusing to permit pipelines and access to offshore terminals.

[BOBTHENAILER]

66bpd for the second full day (and 246mcf gas, with a connecting pipeline being finished this month).

Gotta love it. I know 4-5 people working the Barnett Shale right now.

You are too right on coal. 200 year supply last study I saw.

[Grampa Dave]

There are 4 gas and oil trust which have been excellent investments this past year. These trusts also spin off great dividends running from 7 to 12% per year.

These trusts can be bought and sold like stocks, SJT, PTF, PGH, PWI.

http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=SJT&c=PTF,PGH,PWI&t=

[Grampa Dave]

Great suggestions re shortening the state boundaries in the oceans/gulfs and more drilling there plus the coal/oil/gas option.

Congratulations on being an evil oil/gas producer.

[BOBTHENAILER]

I've been tempted to buy the SJB RT, but since I already get royalty from wells there, I passed.

Those are all good ones though. I'm into a few spiders and Ishares in both production companies and drilling companies. All are doing well.

Some small ones that have leases in good areas that are starting to drill their holdings are doing very, very well. Risky as hell though.

[Gritty]

Interesting article on our "oil problem", if you haven't seen it.

Shell's ingenious approach to oil shale is pretty slick

But no doubt the environmentalists will pull out all the stops to prevent it. They have a pretty good track record for scr*wing this county...

New Orleans: A Green Genocide [BLOOD ON THEIR HANDS]

[BOBTHENAILER]

great links, thanks.

I was aware of the Shell program, but enjoyed the link. The second was even better.

[DallasMike]

Fellow Freepers:

At the suggestion of writer Michelle Malkin last Friday, I have cobbled together a blogsite called Texas Clearinghouse for Katrina Aid to serve as a clearinghouse for refugee efforts in Texas.

Texas is getting more refugees than any other state -- that's fine, we'll take them all -- but we need help providing them with food, clothing, medicine, and shelter. We need help taking care of their pets, too.

If you are a refugee, you can information that will help you find relief. If you want to donate or volunteer, you can find someone who needs you. Believe me, there are a lot of organizations who need your help.

Right now the site mostly covers Houston, San Antonio, and Dallas but I'm adding more every night. My wife was down at Reunion Arena in Dallas Tuesday handing out care packages and spiritually ministering to the refugees as a representative of her employer. She says that the situation is tragic and that there's a lot of work to be done. There are so many children who don't know where their parents are or even if their parents are still alive.

There are a lot of churches and other organizations in Texas that need help in dealing with the problem and I would appreciate it if you would get the word out.

Many thanks,

Michael McCullough

Stingray blogsite

[oceanagirl]

At least half of our electricity is generated by burning coal. We are mining as fast as we can and face bottlenecks in the coal supply system.

If we are to make oil from coal, we will need to upgrade our rail system or pipeline system. We will also need to build nuke plants like crazy because if we use our coal to both fuel our vehicles and our electricity generators we will run out of coal much sooner than the 200 years or so predicted.

I am not convinced that natural gas is that abundant in North America in the long term so I don't see that as a good substitute for coal or oil in any capacity. I think that we should use it for heating homes, offices and commercial and industrial buildings and for manufacturing chemicals and providing heat for industrial purposes.

Managing our long-term energy supply will not be done by finding that silver bullet, but will require adjustments just about everywhere.

[WOSG]

Southack, another angle on this - and another refutation of the scam against 'offshore drilling' ... supposedly it's to prevent oil spills on beaches, but have you ever seen a 'natural gas' spill on a beach? So why dont they allow natural gas drilling then?! hmmmmm?

http://energyoutlook.blogspot.com/2004/03/unintended-environmental-damage-this.html

"Unintended Environmental Damage
This fascinating article by a former Greenpeace activist details some of the unintentional fallout of concerted opposition to genetically modified crops around the world. Although Mr. Moore's focus is on biotechnology, it could just as well have been on energy.

Consider the bans on offshore oil and gas drilling imposed in areas such as California and Florida. Although targeted mainly at preventing drilling-related oil spills, such as the one that blighted Santa Barbara's beaches in 1969, they make no distinction between drilling for oil and drilling for gas, which incurs little or no risk of spills. As a result, billions of cubic feet of natural gas that US consumers and industry desperately need today are not being produced.

In the case of Florida alone, the resources in question appear sufficient to supply all of that state's gas needs for the next twenty-plus years. We know what these bans are intended to prevent, but what are their unintended consequences for the environment?

Well, for one thing, with natural gas prices extremely high today, the incentive to produce electricity from coal goes up dramatically. Coal plants are run harder, gas turbines less so, and this means more acid rain precursors and greenhouse gases are emitted into the air. Similarly, home heating oil looks more attractive relative to gas, and although it is not as dirty as coal, it is certainly not as clean as gas. So again, air pollution increases, because of policies that keep known reserves of gas locked underwater.

Finally, demand for gas imports goes up, too. Since new supplies from Canada and Alaska will require major new pipelines (with their own environmental impacts, which may prevent them from being built), the incentive to import liquefied natural gas (LNG)increases. We are currently seeing a media blitz on the virtues of LNG, which is indeed a clean fuel in and of itself.

Of course, when we evaluate the benefits of LNG, we don't typically factor in the energy that was used to liquefy it, a process that consumes 10-20% of the original gas, with accompanying emissions of greenhouse gases. Once it is in a tanker on the water, it requires a terminal near its final market in which to receive and regasify it. A number of companies are currently discovering the complexities of siting such facilities near anyone or anything.

So we begin with a set of values that declare natural gas to be cleaner and thus the fuel of choice, but then other values make it next to impossible actually to produce a good chunk of the gas that's right here in the US. The consequences are more pollution from burning other fuels and, in effect, "outsourcing" the negatives that concern us to some other country that will produce gas for us, turn it into LNG and put in on a tanker.

So in a manner not so different from the opponents cited by Mr. Moore, a number of prominent people who appear smart enough to understand the big picture relating to natural gas supply and demand have deliberately chosen not to, for reasons of ideology or political gain, resulting in a substantial increase in air pollution and worsening of the US balance of trade. They are entitled to their views, but they should not continue to masquerade as friends of the environment."