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 ...
The markets have stabilized. If there were wide spread fear, then the spot price of gas would be over $3.00/gal.
Katrina level got up to $2.89/gal and fell back. Spot gas has been stuck at $2.10/gal for the last several hours. However, gas prices didn't hit $2.89/gal until August 31st.
I am also certain that engineers, at least I would hope, took into consideration that a Cat 5 Hurricane just might hit the gulf, like it has in the past and has designed the refineries based on probablities and codes.
Filled up tonight and intend to have a 2 weeks supply in cans.
Great advice. Yes, let's start another senseless panic.
I don't want to start a panic. I just want conservatives to get their tanks filled so that it's the liberals who get hit with the rate hikes.
I guess every hurricane, earthquake, tornado, flood, thunderstorm, blizzard, ice storm, drought, forest fire, dust storm, and tsunami will now be a political event. The race will be on to spend tax payer dollars and the MSM will flood the airwaves will bad news and predictions of gloom and doom, unless of course there is a dem in the White House. I'd hate to see what would happen if 'Old Faithful' ever missed one.
Because supply disruptions happen abruptly, and we recover gradually. Not everything is a conspiracy.
I mean for crying out loud....milk COULD be outlawed.
Whatever...........
Good point. However, I think it's a safe bet that we are going to see that spot price increase quite a bit in the next 48 hours.... And let's not forget natural gas supplies, of which the price will certainly climb to new heights...
I am also certain that engineers, at least I would hope, took into consideration that a Cat 5 Hurricane just might hit the gulf, like it has in the past and has designed the refineries based on probablities and codes.
Rita is the THIRD most powerful storm ever recorded at this moment, and there is plenty of time for her to reach the number one spot. If she hits at the strength she is right now, everything within a couple of miles of the coast is simply going to disappear, or at least be VERY heavily damaged. Almost nothing is designed to withstand a CAT 5....it's simply not possible, economically speaking.
Also, at least one third of the refineries that were in the past of Katrina are still not back on line...gas prices have come down thanks to a number of measures, especially tankers full of gas arriving from Europe.
Gas and energy prices WILL go up in the next few days, and will go up quite a bit. The only question is where the new price is going to stabalize.
I just filled both of my tanks a few hours ago too.
duplicate
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1488754/posts
CNN editorial posing as news.
The numbers you don't see on the web is that about 10% of the refining capacity was affected by Katrina. Another 20+% is in the path of Rita, but these refineries are spread out -- not clumped as badly as the New Orleans refineries.
We also need to build gasoline tankers. There was a release of international strategic petroleum reserves (Japan, Eurpope, etc.) to deal with Katrina, but the spot market for gasoline and the need to deliver it made it impossible to find tankers for the oil released from the reserve.
Environmentalists have made sure the world looks through Rose Colored glasses. The MSM is also to blame for this mess.
Anytime a freeper goes to a gas station, and people are complaining about shortages and high prices -- tell them this a gift from enviromental wackos like Kerry, Fonda, Kennedy, Boxer, Hillary, Schumer, Snowe, Chafee, Feinstein.
And from all the data I see, the enviro wackos are the core problem of high gasoline prices and current fuel shortages...
But there is a fix:
Spread the word that endangered sea turtles are in the path of the hurricane and need to be rescued starting late Friday afternoon between Port Aransas and Galveston, and make sure they only have enough gasoline for a one way trip to the Gulf Coast...
My thoughts exactly.... And, after each of these crises there was more gas to be sold at higher prices!
Acts of God are not collusion.
There is currenly a shortage of refinery capacity, gasoline tankers from other parts of the world, and now Rita has a bead on 20+% of the US Refinery capacity. Katrina took out 10%, but most of that is now online. However, all the logistical support is now is Houston and most good ports for keeping the oil field and business running is West of where Katrina struck in Texas.
But if NASA is shutting down in Clear Lake and turning over control of the International Space Station to the Russian Space Agency, is that collusion? Who is to blame for that -- Space Aliens?
Let me have 1/3 of your paycheck for a year, and see if you don't scream bloody murder.
That is the whole point that about 1/3 of our refinery capacity is basically FUBR from now until next Monday. After that, we probably can get 20% back online, if we are lucky.
Remember, the oil companies had to relocate folks from Louisiana somewhere -- didn't they? So if they relocated to New Orleans -- where is the logistical support for the refineries trying to come back online?
Is it in (a) Erie, Pennsylvania, or (b) Cheyenne Wyoming, or (c) Houston, TX.
If you guess Houston, TX, you now must tell people to go back to Houston and not evacuate -- since enviro wackos want to go around wasting gas in their SUV's saving polka-dotted snails from extinction along with Kennedy cochroaches and Hillary cochroaches...
and don't forget all the **** ******* subsidies the rest of the country gives to crack whores, whoops, I mean farmers, in the midwest.
I love your math! The United States has not built a new refinery in 30 years, and you seem to believe that we can produce gasoline at 100% of refinery capacity.
Well, if we do, that means no diesel, no fuel oil, and no jet fuel.
So according to your math, we now have 200% of the refinery capacity we had 5 years ago -- without building any new refineries. Simply amazing! 1+0 = 2
This must be the new math!
We're building ethanol and biodiesel plants instead.
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