Page 20 - NorthAmOil Annual Review 2021
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NorthAmOil                                     SEPTEMBER                                          NorthAmOil




       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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