Posted on 09/21/2005 5:36:47 PM PDT by Crackingham
Remember when gas spiked to $3-plus a gallon after Hurricane Katrina? By this time next week, that could seem like the good old days. Weather and energy experts say that as bad as Hurricane Katrina hit the nation's supply of gasoline, Hurricane Rita could be worse. Katrina damage was focused on offshore oil platforms and ports. Now the greater risk is to oil-refinery capacity, especially if Rita slams into Houston, Galveston and Port Arthur, Texas.
"We could be looking at gasoline lines and $4 gas, maybe even $5 gas, if this thing does the worst it could do," said energy analyst Peter Beutel of Cameron Hanover. "This storm is in the wrong place. And it's absolutely at the wrong time," said Beutel.
Michael Schlacter, chief meteorologist at Weather 2000, said Rita now appears most likely to hit between Port Arthur and Corpus Christi, Texas, sometime between Friday afternoon and Saturday morning. Just about all of Texas's refinery capacity lies in that at-risk zone.
"There is no lucky 7-10 split scenario to use a bowling analogy," he said. "If you're [a refiner] within 200 miles, you're going to feel the effect."
When Katrina hit, 15 refineries, nearly all in Louisiana and Mississippi, with a combined capacity of about 3.3 million barrels a day were shut down or damaged, according to the Energy Department. That represented almost 20 percent of U.S. refining capacity.
Within a week, almost two-thirds of that damaged capacity had resumed some operations, according to the department. But four refineries with nearly 900,000 barrels a day of capacity are still basically shut down.
If Rita hits both the Houston-Galveston area, as well as the Port Arthur-Beaumont region near the Texas-Louisiana border, that could take out more than 3 million barrels of capacity a day
(Excerpt) Read more at money.cnn.com ...
Please.
Build more refineries.... inland.
You literally see the joy in their reporting -
Nevertheless, GWB will continue to lead and America and the World will continue to be better off because he is in office -
Is there a lesson to be learned here? You bet there is and it has to do with refinery capacity and georgraphy. New England Nimbyidiots, you listening?
I guess the media needs a constant boner over bad news.
Freepers and conservatives in America, GET TO THE GAS PUMP TONIGHT!!!
I just filled my tank a few hours ago.
CNN thread again. The main problem in NO was the workers had to get out and couldn't get back, that plus flooding. It's pretty hard to blow down pipeworks. 76 Michoud workers had still not reported in at the Shuttle external tank assembly plant last report. There won't be any problem in Texas, maybe a couple days offline.
Why is it they can raise the proces so fast, but they never lower them at the same rate?
We are all getting screwed.
HEY!
I don't see any freakin' Midwesterners lining up for refineries to be built in THEIR backyards.
Thanks, but I just topped off last week and going back again so soon would burn as much gasoline as would fit in the tank at this point to top off again.
Translation: Some higher-ups at CNN shorted the equity markets yesterday.
I say go for 10 dollars a gallon!
It will thin out the herd into the serious drivers only.
Donald Trump
YES.
Gas used to be $.50/gal, then there was a crisis and it went to $1.75 and everybody screamed, so it went back down to $.75/gal and everybody was happy.
Then there was a crisis and gas went from $.75 to $2 and everybody screamed until it went back down to $1.25.
Then there was a crisis...............
Exactly.
Bring it on.
Anybody else notice this?
Anyway, while I don't think gas will hit $5, I can gaurentee that it will be above $3 in a couple of days, and probably linger between $3 and $4 for quite a while.
It would be better for everyone if Rita were to follow in Katrina's path, and finally turn New Orleans into a lake. Having Rita staying on her current path, and at her current intensity towards the Texas coast is doing to do terrible things to all the refinery's and ports located there.
This is not good, not good at all. Even if every single person is removed out of Rita's path, you can't move the refineries, storage tanks, and dock facilities. Also, I imagine a lot more offshore rigs will be heavily damaged if not destroyed by Rita.
While there won't be any gas shortages, things will be expensive for a while....maybe a LONG while...
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