Hurricane Gustav, Energy Infrastructure & Production Impacts/Models (Updated! Th

Latest updates from Chuck Watson:

(11:30a 8/28) Compared to the morning drama, not much changed. Models still consolidating the reformation, and Gustav continues to reorganize. Hard to tell how much of the movement is motion vs. reorganization. As I keep emphasizing, until it gets to Cuba/Yucatan Straits Friday, longer range implications for the GOM fields are not much better than guessing.

(early am 8/28) The reformation of the storm last night to the southwest reshuffled the deck a little with respect to the models, and the big jump in intensity (recon reported 60 knot winds and NHC upped current intensity to 60kts at 715am) is surprising and scary. This is bad in the sense that the track will pass further south from Cuba, which would have kept the storm more disorganized.

HWRF and GFDL have split; HWRF has landfall just west of NOLA (bad for oil), GFDL and the GFS based BAM runs have it hitting near Mobile AL (much better deal for oil; strongest impacts would miss virtually all of the active leases). Some of the UK runs have it going in towards Beaumont – major bad.

I’m voting for the GFDL scenario right now, but as I said yesterday, we really won’t have a good picture until this thing clears Cuba and enters the Gulf, and we have a better feel for the timing of the interactions with the incoming system from the west.

The Oil Drum