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Gulf Coast operators

assess Ida’s impact

Gulf Coast refiners and Gulf of Mexico producers were

assessing the damage from Hurricane Ida in early September,

after the storm passed through the region and hit Louisiana

US GULF COAST PRODUCTION in the US Gulf of Mexico
and coastal downstream operations alike were
WHAT: severely disrupted by Hurricane Ida, which
Producers and refiners made landfall in Louisiana as a Category 4 hur-
in the US Gulf region are ricane on August 29.
assessing the impact of According to the US Bureau of Safety and
Hurricane Ida on their Environmental Enforcement (BSEE), 95.7%
operations. of Gulf oil production and 93.8% of gas output
was shut in the day the storm made landfall. This
WHY: equates to 1.74mn barrels per day (bpd) and
Ida caused most offshore 2.09bn cubic feet (59.2mn cubic metres) per day
Gulf production to of oil and gas shut-ins respectively.
go offline, and made And as of August 30, around 75% of Louisi-
landfall as a Category 4 ana’s refining capacity was offline, estimated at
hurricane. 2.2mn bpd of capacity.
Nearly all of Louisiana lost power on August
WHAT NEXT: 30 after the storm knocked out transmission
While some operations lines and other infrastructure.
have restarted, others are In the days since, refiners and offshore pro- procedures. Refiners tend to generate power
expected to take time to ducers started to assess the impact of the storm from their own internal processes, but still need
return to normal. after it passed. Some have started to restore external electricity to balance their power supply.
operations, but the process will take time. More Marathon Petroleum was reported to be
broadly, clean-up and repair efforts were com- using diesel generators at its 578,000 bpd Gar-
plicated by widespread flooding. ryville refinery, allowing it to carry out repairs
There have been warnings that both offshore now, in anticipation of restarting once power is
production and refineries could be slow to restored to the facility.
return online. Offshore this can be attributed to Facilities operated by Royal Dutch Shell,
the hit Louisiana’s Port Fourchon – a key point Valero, PBF Energy and Phillips 66 were also
of entry to the Gulf and a hub for supplies to affected. Timelines for restarting plants that had
oil and gas platforms – took from Ida. Onshore, been shut down ahead of Ida’s arrival remained
restoring water and power supplies onshore uncertain, but it has been suggested that some
could take weeks. Indeed, consultancy Rystad of the refineries could be offline for up to four
Energy commented on September 2 that off- weeks.
shore production would likely come back online News relating to offshore operations also
more quickly than refining capacity. comprised a mix of progress and uncertainty
and the majority of output remained shut in.
Assessing impact The BSEE reported on September 2 that 93.6%
Updates started to come in over the past few days of Gulf oil production and 91.3% of gas output
from operators that had been able to assess some was estimated to still be offline, based on oper-
of the damage inflicted by the storm. ator reports.
On September 1, ExxonMobil said it was However, the bureau’s data showed that staff
restarting its 517,700 bpd Baton Rouge refinery, were returning to rigs and platforms that had
which did not sustain damage from the storm, been evacuated. On August 29, BSEE data
after external power supply to the plant was showed that 51.4% of Gulf platforms and 100%
restored. Other refiners, however, were waiting of rigs had been evacuated, while 10 of the 15
for power to be restored before beginning restart dynamically positioned rigs had moved off

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