Offshore in the Gulf of Mexico, no oil was being produced as of Monday afternoon, the U.S. Minerals Management Service said. Before Hurricane Katrina, producers typically pumped about 1.5 million barrels of crude a day.
Also remaining shut in was 7.84 billion cubic feet of gas, representing about 78 percent of daily production. Even before Rita, officials had been warning it would take months to get production back up to normal.
"We think the market's underestimating the natural gas impact here," David Pursell, an energy analyst with Pickering Energy Partners in Houston. Companies are usually building up the natural gas stockpiles at this time of year to prepare for the winter, when daily use outstrips daily production.
For the next month, equipment repairs instead will be a major concern for many in the oil and gas business.
http://www.rigzone.com/news/article.asp?a_id=25593
We burned a record amount of Nat Gas this year to generate power. This is probably typical for most of the utility industry in the US this summer. Virtually all new generating capacity in the last few years has been gas-turbine due to the low capital costs and easier siting compared to coal & nuke. Unfortunately, that has brought about a huge demand as well, adding to the lower stockpile situation.