HOUSTON – Some experts are calling Hurricane Laura a second coming of the tragic and devastating Hurricane Katrina that had once forced the halting of oil refineries and had cut crude production in the Texas-Louisiana coast.
Forecasts had put the projections of Hurricane Laura’s winds to be over 115 miles per hour (185 kph) that had forced an evacuation inland from all coastal residences in Texas and Louisiana prompting hundreds of thousands of people to start leaving the coasts.
Hurricane Laura is said to be a category 4 hurricane with the speed of its winds and it’s size of a 10 foot (3 meter) storm surge that would hit upper Texas stated DTN Meteorologist Chris Kerr. DTN is a company that deals in agriculture, energy and weather data.
“There will be a significant storm surge from Galveston (Texas) to the Sabine River,” an area encompassing some of the region’s largest refineries. There are ideal conditions in the central and west Gulf for rapid intensification.” said Mr. Kerr.
Oil producers on Tuesday had evacuated 310 offshore facilities and shut 1.56 million barrels per day (bpd) of crude output, 84% of Gulf of Mexico’s offshore production, near the 90% outage that Katrina brought 15 years ago.
According to the Energy Information Administration, the Hurricane’s landfall would affect an area that accounts for 17% of the country’s oil production and a whopping 45% of total U.S Petroleum refining capacity.
Facilities were forced to stop their refining in gasoline and diesel fuel when the Hurricane was reported to land on the coast, stopping the process of nearly 2.9 million bpd of oil which amounts to 14.6% of the U.S total capacity.
The largest U.S exporter of liquefied natural gas Cheniere Energy Inc, was forced to evacuate its staff and suspend operations on the Texas/Louisiana border along the Sabine Pass LNG export terminal. Other companies such as SA and Valero Energy began cutting their operations in Texas at their Port Arthur refineries to avoid the same damage that Hurricane Laura is estimated to bring.
Louisiana-based Citgo Petroleum halted it’s 418,000 bpd refinery from operating as gas giant Chevron did likewise in Texas, stopping 112,000 bpd gas production.
Hurricane Laura also forced Exxon Mobil to take heavy precautions who had shut down their Texas refinery ahead of the evacuation period to mitigate any damages to the plants before the storm lands.
