Last Friday, July 12th, we was all mighty concerned for our friends out in the Gulf and ever'body sittin' right in the path of dat “Tropical-Briefly Hurricane-Storm Barry”. We're still prayin' hard for dem folks who got dumped on with over 15 inches of water, ever'body dealin' with dat floodin' near the Mississippi River, and all y'all still stuck underneath Barry,
I wanted to take a good look at what ol' Barry messed with along his journey and what it means for all of us workin' in the industry. Early numbers are sayin' Barry had the potential to cause $800-900 million dollars in damage, but y'all keep an eye out for updated numbers as Tropical Storm Barry keeps on fadin' away.
Gettin' ready for Barry, dem offshore operators cleared out the rigs, moved 'em around, or at the very least shut down production 'cause they was worried 'bout safety with dat storm rollin' in.
By Wednesday, July 10th, 600,000 barrels of production had been stopped cold, and by Friday, July 12th, over 1,000,000 barrels a day of Gulf production come to a dead standstill.
Even though it's only 'bout ~1/12th of the US production capacity, this here slowdown helped push dat WTI price spike around July 10th. Oil is still tradin' at dat natural disaster premium, though it pulled back just a hair below $60 as of the mornin' of July 16th. The official numbers they posted show dat ~%53 of oil production and ~%45 of natural gas production got cut while folks was gettin' ready for Barry.
The sad truth of it is, we got refineries to worry 'bout right here at home, not just dem rigs out in the Gulf. At first, the refineries in the storm's path was plannin' to stay runnin', but as Barry started bearin' down, a whole bunch of 'em decided to shut down to keep their workers and facilities safe from harm.
Now I ain't got no hard numbers yet, but the real tell is gonna come in a week or so if we see the price of gas jumpin' up at the pumps. Somethin' else y'all need to watch for: if refinery output drops below crude production, we might just tip dat good ol' scale of supply and demand against us and cause crude prices to take a tumble.
Two big players in LNG (Liquefied Natural Gas), Cheniere Energy’s Sabine Pass terminal and Sempra Energy’s new Cameron Facilities, was both lookin' down the barrel of Tropical Storm Barry, but right now it looks like they didn't take no heavy damage. I tell you what, it's worth mentionin' dat Phillips 66’s refinery in Alliance, Louisiana got shut down Friday, July 12th when they called dat mandatory evacuation in Plaquemines Parish. But as of Monday, July 15th, dat Alliance refinery fired back up and oughta be runnin' at full capacity again right quick.
We're mighty thankful dat Barry didn't hold onto dat “Hurricane” status when he hit land, so he didn't dump near as much rain as folks was expectin'. Even though some scary pictures of NOLA was goin' around, we're sure glad to hear dem pumps got 'em dried out real fast. Louisiana officials are also sayin' dat NO LEVEES got breached by the storm surge. HALLELUJAH to dat!
Y'all stay tuned for next month’s report, and if you missed what we put out last month, you can check it out RIGHT HERE!
Don't y'all forget to check out our other free online resources, neither!
