U.S. energy sector braces for the worst from Gustav
08.28.08, 5:34 PM ET
United States
By Erwin Seba

HOUSTON (Reuters) - Energy companies began shutting down Gulf of Mexico production Thursday ahead of Tropical Storm Gustav, which could deliver the worst blow to the heart of U.S. offshore oil and natural gas production since 2005.

U.S. crude oil climbed early on storm fears, then tumbled when the U.S. government and the International Energy Agency said emergency supplies would be provided if needed. Crude settled down $2.56 Thursday at $115.59 a barrel.

The Gulf region provides a quarter of U.S. oil production and 15 percent of U.S. natural gas output. Still, an analyst said fears of a repeat of the 2005's devastating hurricanes Katrina and Rita, which shut 25 percent of offshore oil production, may be overblown, an analyst said.

"We will have some damage from this - I don't think it will be long lasting," said Planalytics analyst Paul Corby.

Katrina and Rita destroyed more than 100 platforms and damaged others, boosting crude oil prices. Corby noted that the most vulnerable platforms are now gone and the remaining facilities have been strengthened.

The U.S. Department of Energy said the government was ready to release crude oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve if Gustav seriously disrupted supplies. The International Energy Agency said member nations were ready to release strategic oil stocks.

Oil companies were preparing platforms for the storm, expected to enter the Gulf as a major hurricane on Sunday and possibly reach catastrophic strength.

Shell Oil Co, the U.S. Gulf's largest producer, said it began turning off production on Thursday at a few of its wells while continuing evacuations of 1,300 workers from the Gulf of Mexico.

Anadarko Petroleum Corp said it expects to shut all its production, including the Independence Hub, the largest offshore natural gas processing facility, by Sunday as it evacuates all offshore staff.

The nation's only deepwater oil port, the Louisiana Offshore Oil Port, which offloads about 1 million barrels per day in foreign crude, expects to stop offloading over the weekend, perhaps as early as Saturday.

Driller Transocean was evacuating workers and preparing to pull more employees off rigs in the Gulf, the company said in a statement.

Apache Corp, BP, Chevron Corp ConocoPhillips and Murphy Oil said they were pulling nonessential workers from production platforms. Conoco shut the Magnolia platform for an overhaul on Monday and was stopping drilling operations at its South Louisiana Inland Water site.

All other companies with Gulf of Mexico operations said they were carefully monitoring the storm and preparing for evacuations or to shut production. (Reporting by Erwin Seba, Chris Baltimore, Robert Gibbons, Rebekah Kebede, Eileen Moustakis and Richard Valdmanis; Editing by David Gregorio)

http://www.forbes.com/reuters/feeds/reut...Y-UPDATE-3.html

Bush declares emergency in Louisiana, Texas

WASHINGTON (AFP) — US President George W. Bush on Friday declared a state of emergency in Louisiana and Texas in the face of killer Hurricane Gustav, freeing up aid from Washington three years after Hurricane Katrina.

The move empowers federal authorities to lead all disaster relief efforts "to save lives, protect property and public health and safety, or to lessen or avert the threat of a catastrophe" in the states, the White House said.

Bush's decision came three years after Katrina devastated New Orleans and other parts of the Gulf coast, killing 1,800 people.

The botched Washington response swamped the president's approval ratings amid widespread criticism that he paid too little attention to the storm.

Gustav is forecast to slam the Gulf coast early Tuesday as a powerful Category Three hurricane with wind speeds of up to 130 miles (209 kilometers) per hour -- the same force as Katrina when it slammed New Orleans in 2005.

http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5iIEv-3gZJFGIev85Q5LCVqh3Sbbg

NEW ORLEANS - Spooked by predictions that Hurricane Gustav could grow into a Category 5 monster, an estimated 1 million people fled the Gulf Coast Saturday — even before the official order came for New Orleans residents to get out of the way of a storm taking dead aim at Louisiana.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080831/ap_on_re_us/gustav_gulf_coast

The mayor of New Orleans has issued a mandatory evacuation order for the entire city, as Hurricane Gustav bears down on the US Gulf Coast.
He called it "the storm of the century" and added: "You need to be scared".
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7590332.stm

In pictures: Gustav strikes Cuba
On BBC: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_pictures/7590403.stm

Cubans returned from shelters to find flooded homes and washed-out roads Sunday, but no deaths were reported after a monstrous Hurricane Gustav roared across the island and into the oil-rich Gulf of Mexico.

A Cuban television reporter on the Isla de la Juventud said the storm had felt like "the blast wave from a bomb."

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5gVWjsPEiqe1tEu2mhBIRaxxGi8owD92TEG2O2

If, as currently predicted, Gustav lands west of New Orleans on Monday as a Category 4 hurricane with wind speeds up to 155 mph (249 kph), its 16-foot (5-metre) storm surge could break through the same levees that failed three year ago.

Gustav weakened to a still dangerous Category 3 storm after it passed over Cuba. It killed at least 86 people in the Dominican Republic, Haiti and Jamaica.

But the latest warnings from the National Hurricane Center brought some relief with signs that the storm was weakening slightly and sucking up less power over the warm Gulf water that made Katrina an explosive Category 5 as it moved north.

Katrina was a Category 3 when its 28-foot (8.5 metre) storm surge burst levees on Aug. 29, 2005.

http://uk.reuters.com/article/wtMostRead/idUKN3150875020080831

we are being told to expect 12 to 18 ft surge this time. katrina, while it hit as a 3, was a 5 in the gulf and started pushing a 5 sized wall of water, which does not down grade once it starts moving, even if the storm itself does down grade. so far there is no indication of that with gustav. it could still intensify but right now wind shear from the west is tearing it up and keeping it from building. we hope that continues.

fish

During Dean last year the surge was predicted higher than it actually was here in Belize. I also noticed that the surge predictions have been downsized on Wunderground.com compared to earlier, but better be prepared for the worst!

Agree on the wind shear, and would also like to add colder waters as a factor: http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/phod/dataphod1/work/HHP/NEW/2008243go.jpg (unfortunately the last data from this site - others are less readable) On satellite images the eye is not visible anymore...

Keep your head down and your nose above sea-level Darrin!!!

lol, so far so good.

the nasitiest hasnt showed yet....but so far its shaping up to be anti climatic.

fish