Hurricanes and Sand Storms, Some Thoughts on the Coming Months

The Oil Drum – The EIA has come out with quite a thoughtful piece on likely hurricane damage which includes an attempted prediction of the impact that this coming storm season might have on refinery output in the Gulf. They have plotted previous years effects, to show how unusual last year was. Note that PADD 3 is the area that includes the Gulf Coast.

At present they are accepting the NOAA forecast that this year will be above normal, but not as bad as last year, however, as they note:

Based on NOAA’s May 2006 projections for the 2006 hurricane season and the historical relationship between tropical storm activity and production disruptions between 1960 and 2005, total reductions in crude oil and natural gas production from the Gulf of Mexico OCS due to tropical storm activity in 2006 are expected to range from 0 to 35 million barrels and 0 to 206 billion cubic feet, respectively. NOAA emphasizes that its May hurricane outlook is based on climatological conditions that are still evolving….

The Oil Drum