Business | Oil & Gas
Refiners restore operations in areas hit by Hurricane Ike
Refiners along the US Gulf Coast are restoring operations after Hurricane Ike caused about 20 per cent of the nation's production capacity to shut.
- Bloomberg
- Published: 00:18 September 19, 2008
New York: Refiners along the US Gulf Coast are restoring operations after Hurricane Ike caused about 20 per cent of the nation's production capacity to shut.
ConocoPhillips, Royal Dutch Shell Plc and Valero Energy Corp initiated startup at refineries in Texas, bringing to 15 the number of plants resuming operations or operating at reduced rates after Ike hit the area four days ago and Hurricane Gustav struck on September 1. At least 10 are still out of service.
Most refiners are waiting for restoration of power and for pipelines and ports to bring in crude oil. The Houston petroleum port, the largest in the US, partly opened to daylight transit by tankers, the US Coast Guard said in a statement.
The startup process "seems to be going fairly well considering the size and the breadth of the hurricane,'' said Bruce Bullock, director of the Maguire Energy Institute at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, in a telephone interview.
"Oil is out there. It's just getting it into the pipelines that is the challenge.'' Conoco-Phillips is restarting its Sweeny, Texas, refinery, the company said in a statement on its website. It is also boosting rates at its Belle Chasse and Lake Charles, Louisiana, plants.
Shell said yesterday that it is starting its Deer Park, Texas, refinery and that the plant may reach normal rates within five to seven days. The company's Motiva refinery at Norco, Louisiana, was to reach normal rates yesterday.
Motiva Enterprises LLC, a joint venture of Shell and Saudi Arabia's state oil company, said the refinery is limited by "dependent resources.'' Motiva is trying to restore power to its Port Arthur, Texas, refinery. The Convent refinery may produce gasoline and other products by this weekend.
Valero Energy Corp., the largest US refinery, said it is in the "preliminary stages'' of restarting its Houston refinery. The plant's main process units may begin production in "several more days,'' said Bill Day, a company spokesman in an e-mail. Valero's Port Arthur refinery has "limited self-generated power,'' Day said. The company doesn't have a startup timetable for the Port Arthur or Texas City sites.
ExxonMobil Corp, the world's biggest oil company, said its Baytown, Texas, refinery is generating its own electricity and providing some of it to local power suppliers. Ike left Houston residents without drinking water and severed power to millions after ripping through America's fourth-largest city. It's the first storm to hit a major US metropolitan area since Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans in 2005.
A total of 95.9 per cent of oil production and 82.3 per cent of gas output was idled in the Gulf, the US Minerals Management Service said today. Gulf fields produce 1.3 million barrels of oil a day, about a quarter of US output, and 7.4 billion cubic feet of gas, 14 per cent of the total, government data showed.
Devon Energy Corp., the biggest US independent oil and natural-gas producer, restored offshore production totalling 10,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day, the company said in a statement.
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