Posted on 08/28/2017 8:30:34 AM PDT by Perseverando
HOUSTON (Reuters) - A hurricane in the heart of the U.S. energy industry is set to curtail near-record U.S. oil production for several weeks, with the impact expected to reverberate throughout the country and across international energy markets.
Harvey hit the Texas shore as a fierce Category 4 hurricane, causing massive flooding that has knocked out 11 percent of U.S. refining capacity, a quarter of oil production from the U.S. Gulf of Mexico, and closed ports all along the Texas coast.
Gasoline futures jumped as much as 7 percent to their highest level in more than two years in early Monday trading in Asia as traders took stock of the storms impact.
The outages will limit the availability of U.S. crude, gasoline and other refined products for global consumers and further push up prices, analysts said.
Damage assessments could take days to weeks to complete, and the storm continues to drop unprecedented levels of rain as it lingers west of Houston, home to oil, gas, pipeline and chemical plants. And restarts are dangerous periods, as fires and explosions can occur.
So far, the federal government has not announced if it will release barrels of oil or refined products from the nations Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR), which holds nearly 680 million barrels of oil.
The SPR was established in the 1970s to prevent supply shocks in the wake of an embargo imposed by several members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC).
(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...
IIRC, Bush and Soetoro released the SPR on more than one occasion.
If there isn’t some reporter whining about the SPR once every six months, something is wrong.
OMG!!! They said the same thing during and after Katrina; how in the world did the oil industry in the Gulf, New Orleans and Houston ever recover then??? Oh, wait; THEY DID!!!
Back in May, the President suggested selling half of it.
Gasoline is a hard thing to manage.
There is the science of liquids involved.
A gallon gets bigger or smaller depending on temperature (all you scientists back off, I’m not writing for you).
There is also the problem that you lose some gasoline every time it’s transferred.
On top of science, there’s competition.
You can be a good Boy Scout and buy a shipload of gas, but then the price drops and you’re selling gas at cost or below.
And what other product can you find the price of by just driving around town?
Now, I have been in a lawsuit with Big Oil so I have no love for them, but the local retailers have a hard time making money off gasoline.
OPEC was playing with its quotas at the time.
Also,I thought I had read somewhere awhile back that not many refineries were being built in the last several years. If the refineries are mostly in a concentrated area & it’s underwater,isn’t that a recipe for disaster? That’s not complicated to figure out,if this is the case.
Also,I thought I had read somewhere awhile back that not many refineries were being built in the last several years. If the refineries are mostly in a concentrated area & it’s underwater,isn’t that a recipe for disaster? That’s not complicated to figure out,if this is the case.
The law comes back and bites the people of New Jersey in the ass whenever we have a disruptive weather event that causes widespread power failures. In the aftermath of these events, gas station owners found that the law doesn't even let them raise their prices enough to cover the additional cost of bringing in generators to operate their facilities, so most gas stations simply stay closed for several days while people can sometimes spend hours on line at the few places that do open.
“Every natural disaster produces mean little people who will try to gouge their customers.”
I do know what you mean...but the storm isn’t to blame, their parents (who raised them - or not) and they, themselves, are to blame.
exactly. they can’t wait for ONE event to rape us.
What a bunch of greedy bastards. Here in Alberta it hasn’t really jumped. We have major supplies of this stuff too, but a lot of it is still refined elsewhere, so you’d think they’d crank it up as well.
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