Hurricane Ike, Energy Infrastructure, Refineries and Damage Models Landfall

Don’t get me wrong, there will be a lot of damage from this event – insured losses in the $15 to $20 Billion range, storm total impacts in excess of $60 Billion (if you include evacuation costs, etc.). But with what I see right now, my guess would be that the petrochemical industry recovers fairly quickly, with refinery down times in the days to 2 week time frame, not months. I think the biggest problem is going to be staffing and debris cleanup. The infrastructure was probably OK, but power and crews with damaged homes and cleanup issues will be a big problem.


Harder numbers later today, but my estimates from yesterday are probably pretty close on outage probabilities.

The Oil Drum