Latest(10PM CDT) forcast track shows projected direct hit on Cantarell 7PM Tuesday.
http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/refresh/graphics_at4+shtml/203526.shtml?3day#con...

What are the odds of a DIRECT HIT on Canterell at the worst possible time for the US?? Canterell may not recover. Why rebuild it if its in terminal decline? Just let whatever's left get the oil out at whatever rate it can....

Let's see here....2005 GOM oil production smashed, yet to recover fully....now Mex production smashed......Me thinks the odds are tooooo great for this to be coincidence..

http://science.reddit.com/info/2h52g/comments

http://digg.com/business_finance/Cantarell_Now_Directly_in_Hurricane_Dea...

We need your help folks. Spread this around, please.

From the NHC forecast update (02:25 EDT):

DROPSONDE DATA FROM THE AIR FORCE RESERVE HURRICANE HUNTER AIRCRAFT
INDICATE THAT THE MINIMUM CENTRAL PRESSURE IN THE EYE OF HURRICANE
DEAN IS NOW 909 MB...26.84 INCHES.

As if things could not get worse...

From the 2 am NHC advisory:
REPEATING THE 200 AM EDT POSITION...18.5 N...86.8 W. MOVEMENT
TOWARD...WEST NEAR 20 MPH. MAXIMUM SUSTAINED WINDS...160 MPH.
MINIMUM CENTRAL PRESSURE...911 MB.

Since then, Dean has continued to intensify, with a pressure of 909 mb just measured - the 9th lowest ever measured in the Atlantic basin. Landfall is imminent.

If we assume the worst and there is heavy damage on the rigs (I sincerely hope that there won't be any damage), what kind of repair timeframe could we be looking at? I mean how long do repairs on these things usually take?

Ignore me if this is too speculatory.

Hurricane Dean is really something. It made landfall a little before 8am GMT as a cat 5 – the first Atlantic basin storm to do so in 15 years since Andrew in 1992. The minimum pressures are likely to make this a “10 ten” storm. Who knows what’ll happen over the next 12 hours as it transverses the peninsula but seeing as the oil infrastructure is right on the forecast path and the storm made landfall as powerful as it did and is moving quite fast I’d say this is as bad as it could be for Cantarell and KMZ.

Hello TODers,

I sure hope they keep flying those Hurricane Hunter planes into Dean to fully instrument the 'cane crossing the Yucatan. I am insanely curious to see if Dean intensifys over land like Andrew '92 did in FL, and how far it gets before it starts to lose strength and intensity. Then if it does any re-intensification before clearing the Yucatan, then finally how much and how quickly it re-intensifies before it hits Cantarell & KMZ. Time will tell soon.

If the eastern landfall is just North of Chetumal: the storm surge of 12-18 ft, plus waves on top, plus 5,10,20 inches of rain could really saturate this area with warm water to further power the 'cane. As can be seen by this maplink:

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.vivanatura.org/Yucmap3...

and a better geological relief map here:

http://ambergriscaye.com/pages/town/mapreliefbay.html

On the Eastern side: there is a huge estuary or bay that can can be overrun by this surge and then the seawater can be pushed quite a bit further inland if the surrounding land is under 20 ft above mean sea-level. Could this be miles inland? The cane rotational winds will fill this bio-reserve with stormsurge and the escape route for this water will probably down thru Chetumal Bay, instead of a quick flowback to the sea. My guess is that this storm surge will also be encountering huge floods of warm rainwater flowing down from higher locations. All potential fuel for the storm as the winds whip the heat out of these frothy, foaming waters. Not as good as hot, deepwater ocean, but it might be sufficient enough to keep Dean from degrading in intensity and size quickly on the overland traverse.

Notice from the map that a similar bay or estuary exists on the western side where Dean will be exiting into BoC. This can be another source of heat to help keep Dean strong over its land traverse if the feeder bands or eyeball bands can extract any energy from this area before finally clearing into the GoM proper.

Of course, the biggest factor is Dean's areal size. Does it have the 'oceanic suckage' to keep sufficiently sized feeder bands and eyeball bands pumping energy into the 'cane as it traverses land? From the latest satellite-animation maps showing Dean just offshore: by my eyeballing Dean appears big enough to basically fill the land traverse with the eyewall outer bands, and the feeder bands swirling in from the GoM, Yucatan Slot, and the Caribbean seem to be long and thick. All good signs to help Dean slowly degrade instead of petering out over the Yucatan. I am still speculating CAT 3 at Cantarell/KMZ, but I sure wish I could find a highly detailed topographical map of Dean's Yucatan traverse path.

Feel free to refute or embellish as desired, my fellow TODers.

Bob Shaw in Phx,Az Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?

SOME HISTORIC NOTES ARE IN ORDER HERE. THE 906 MB CENTRAL PRESSURE IS THE NINTH LOWEST ON RECORD FOR AN ATLANTIC BASIN HURRICANE...AND THE THIRD LOWEST AT LANDFALL BEHIND THE 1935 LABOR DAY HURRICANE IN THE FLORIDA KEYS AND HURRICANE GILBERT OF 1988 IN CANCUN MEXICO. DEAN IS ALSO THE FIRST CATEGORY FIVE HURRICANE TO MAKE LANDFALL IN THE ATLANTIC BASIN SINCE ANDREW OF 1992.

Just browsed the mainstream media reports on Dean. They are reassuring investors that Dean will do minimal damage to Mexico's oil fields but say nothing of the lost oil production off the world market.

Those poor people in Quintana Roo. Its one of the very poorest parts of Mexico, very Indian, subsistance farmers and fishermen.

www.weatherunderground.com predicts that it will emerge as a category 2. The older platforms likely will have some damage, the most destructive may be to the pipelines. i doubt they are buried very deep in the bay mud, and if they are broken all the wells further out will be offline reguardless of whether the rigs are damaged

Most of the offshore workers likely live in areas which are being heaily affected with rain and winds near the bay of Campeche, the roads may not be passable for them to get to the boats to get them back to the rigs before Thursday or Friday, and the same with the seamen on the crewboats. We won't have any real idea about the true damage until early next week.

After Rita we had shortages of gasoline for a couple of days in the Houston area. There was no damage or electricity shortages, but all the tank truck drivers had evacuated with their families in the runaway scrape of an evacuation, plus the refinery workers to put the gasoline in the trucks. And I expect they will have the same in the Campeche area. You can expect those men to take care of their families firstbefore they get back to work, so it will be early next week before they get out there and survey the damage.

Venezuela Oil Shipments

I noticed that a BIG feeder band of Dean was centered on Lake
Maracaibo Venezuela. I do not expect damage, but it seems that loadings (to all destinations) and shipping to the USA from Venezuela may well have been disrupted for several days.

A small factor in the overall picture, but less heavy oil for all.

Alan

Hello TODers,

Anybody found a good topo-map of the Yuc yet?

This is the best I found so far, but it is just a map of streams to creeks to rivers:

http://edcintl.cr.usgs.gov/iabin/images/yucatan_srtm-level2_synthetic_st...

It sure would be nice to know how steep or level the lay of the land is with a true topo-map. IF the land is real level: imagine these flows not moving downstream much, just getting real wide, real quick from rain and storm surge. Hell some of these rivers will run upstream or backwards from the storm surge, making them incredibly wide, real fast.

From the map, it is easy to see the two bays or estuaries on the opposite sides of the Yucatan. This is pretty close to Dean's overland traverse route. It will be interesting to see after this is all over if many streams will be forced into new streambeds, or if even new islands or small inlets are carved out along the eastern seashore. Who knows?

Bob Shaw in Phx,Az Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?

If Mexican production stays down for much time at all, it will give us a better clue about OPEC's and especially KSA's spare capacity. Their standard claim is that the markets are well-supplied, so they don't have to increase production. With a loss of 2.7 mbpd, it will be difficult for them to continue to claim the world is well-supplied. (Although in Sept '06 they had offered to increase production by 2 mbpd if anyone asked but claimed no one asked, they then seemed to forget that offer when Bodman asked them to increase production this summer.)

On another note, I just heard Capital One has closed down its mortgage division:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/08/21/BU22RM3LF.DTL

A look at the NHC shows that Dean will likely be a Cat 1 or Cat 2 when it passes over Cantarell due to weakening as it passes over the Yucatan.

Nevertheless, about 2.5 million b/d is already shut-in and will be offline all this week and likely for another week or so after that. There will be some damage in the oil fields but the extent of that will not be known for a while. There is low probability that the shut-ins will last longer than I've said here due to that damage.

The oil markets are bearish because Dean missed the U.S. oil & gas infrastructure. I ascribe this to America-centrism and a fundamental ignorance of market fundamentals (exports). There is also myopia and an inability to comprehend global oil supply tightness. If we draw from stocks, an already deteriorating situation can only get worse, perhaps much worse. Yet, traders can not think things through this far.

How can we explain the importance of declines at Cantarell when price-setters can not respond to its entire production being shut-in? (even if it's temporary)

Other watches:

92L is unorganized, may not develop, but too early to stop watching.

http://hadar.cira.colostate.edu/ramsdis/online/trop_ge_vis_float2_0.html

Experimental(92L):
http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/gtwo_atl.shtml

AN EASTERN CARIBBEAN SEA TROPICAL WAVE IS ALONG 65W/66W SOUTH OF 29N MOVING WEST 15 KT. A 1014 MB LOW PRESSURE CENTER DEVELOPED ALONG THE WAVE NEAR 24.5N. DEVELOPMENT...IF ANY...OF THIS SYSTEM IS EXPECTED TO BE SLOW TO OCCUR AS IT MOVES WESTWARD NEAR 20 MPH OVER THE NEXT DAY OR TWO.

http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/text/refresh/MIATWDAT+shtml/211205.shtml?

The other wave (not Invest'd yet) at 40W, is looking very good for development.

http://cimss.ssec.wisc.edu/tropic/real-time/wavetrak/winds/archive/wavet...

Also, in that image you can see a huge wave getting ready to BELCH off of Africa.

from wunderground.com:

Rank Hurricane Season Min. pressure
1 Wilma 2005 882 mbar (hPa)
2 Gilbert 1988 888 mbar (hPa)
3 "Labor Day" 1935 892 mbar (hPa)
4 Rita 2005 895 mbar (hPa)
5 Allen 1980 899 mbar (hPa)
6 Katrina 2005 902 mbar (hPa)
7 Camille 1969 905 mbar (hPa)
8 Mitch 1998 905 mbar (hPa)
9 Dean 2007 906 mbar (hPa)
10 Ivan 2004 910 mbar (hPa

5 out of the 10 storms there formed in the past 4 years

Hello TODers,

10 day weather forecast for Mexico City is lots of rain and thundershowers. Recall that Dean is headed this direction. Will the Big Drain be up to the task?

EDIT: forgot the link to weather.com

http://www.weather.com/outlook/travel/businesstraveler/tenday/MXDF0132?f...

Bob Shaw in Phx,Az Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?

Hurricane Dean is now halfway across the Yucatan, will be across this afternoon. While Dean is significantly degraded, he has a huge windfield and is drawing in moisture and energy from the Gulf of Mexico, the Pacific, and the Caribbean.

From NHC 11 am advisory:
REPEATING THE 1000 AM CDT POSITION...19.0 N...89.6 W. MOVEMENT
TOWARD...WEST NEAR 20 MPH. MAXIMUM SUSTAINED WINDS...105 MPH.
MINIMUM CENTRAL PRESSURE...950 MB.

From 11 am NHC discussion:
AFTER MAKING LANDFALL IN A SPARSELY-POPULATED AREA...DEAN CONTINUES
TO TRAVERSE THE SPARSELY-POPULATED SOUTHERN PORTION OF THE YUCATAN
PENINSULA. THE EYE HAS FILLED AND CLOUD TOPS ARE WARMING. THE
INTENSITY IS ESTIMATED AT 90 KT BASED ON THE DECAY COMPONENT OF THE
SHIPS MODEL. DEAN IS EXPECTED TO EMERGE INTO THE BAY OF CAMPECHE IN
ANOTHER 3 TO 5 HOURS AS A HURRICANE...AND WILL HAVE ABOUT 18 HOURS
OVER WATER TO REGAIN STRENGTH. SHIPS AND GFDL GUIDANCE SUGGESTS
THAT DEAN COULD APPROACH MAJOR HURRICANE STATUS AGAIN...ALTHOUGH
THE AMOUNT OF RESTRENGTHENING WILL BE HARD TO GAUGE UNTIL WE SEE
HOW MUCH OF THE INNER CORE OF THE HURRICANE SURVIVES ITS PASSAGE
OVER LAND.

The Oil Drum gets a shout out today at the Washington Post discussion on the hurricane

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/discussion/2007/08/20/DI200...

Arlington, Va.: One of the ways this storm can affect us here in the U.S. is by shutting in a large portion of the Mexican oil production or even damaging the infrastructure. Fortunately, the largest field, Cantarell, is on the western side of the Yucatan. What strength will Dean be immediately after it leaves the land and gets into the bay? BTW, an excellent discussion of Dean with some of the best maps relative to oil infrastructure is over at the OilDrum site:

http://www.theoildrum.com/node/2905 (Aug. 21)

Steve Scolnik: Dean is likely to be a Cat 1 or 2 as it emerges in the Gulf, but fortunately for the infrastructure, it will be so far south that a good part of the circulation will be still over land. CNBC was reporting this morning that energy prices were dropping in expectation of minimal damage.

Khebab wrote:

This is an historic hurricane by any standard.

Actually, as far as the oil markets are concerned, it's been a consistent and growing yawn since Sunday evening (EDT) when they first opened overseas for trading after the weekend.

TOD vs. the oil traders.

There will an interesting post mortem in any event.

I've been to the Yucatan many times. It is essentially flat with scrubby trees on a limestone base. If you climb to the top of any of the Mayan pyramids you can see for miles. That's the high ground.

The reference and photo up top about the Hurricane Andrew's destruction is hardly a way to measure this. Beyond the Mayan ruins, most structures down the peninsula are barely half as solid as a typical Miami tract house. Chetumal may be the capital of Quintana Roo, but it's a backwater by American standards. And it sits very low.

http://chetumal.com/sights/chetbay

"Two hurricanes in the 1940s leveled the entire town; Chetumal was devastated a third time in 1955 by Hurricane Janet. After this, the town was rebuilt with more solid construction, with concrete blocks replacing wood as the usual material."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chetumal

Well, we'll just have to see about how the concrete blocks hold out.

When TOD posters talk about evacuation, I think most people are thinking about American-type highway arteries. Forget it, not down there. Except for the one big road up to Cancun, everything else is like a U.S. county road...and much more poorly maintained. I've had to dodge many potholes inland between Tulum and Valladolid at a top speed of 25 mph. If trees are down and low areas flood, IMO no one is going anywhere. This is a terrible event.

The morning news coverage out of NYC media outlets is fretting about the TOURISM infrastructure, not oil. Just goes to show you where the priorities are for most people.

All that said, I love Mexico and will be traveling to Morelos State next week for a retreat.

UPDATE FROM CHUCK WATSON at 12:40 EDT

Chuck Watson of KAC/UCF has just released his damage estimates. Here's what he has to say:

Using NHC intensity, 14-20 days down time for southwestern unit, 30-45 days for Northwestern unit (incl. Cantarell). Using the "best objective track (BOT)", southwestern 10-12 days, Northwestern 14-20 days.

That equates to a total shut in of about 30MMBBL (BOT numbers), or in excess of 60 MMBBL (NHC). All depends on how rapidly the storm continues to decay, and how rapidly it recovers.

Ok. So we have a pretty good idea of where Dean is going to hit, and how strong it'll be, and what the production shut-in will be, due to just precautionary closings, etc. We know approximately how many mbd will NOT be making it to the US this week. The markets are acting like it won't matter, but the numbers say otherwise.

Can anyone put this info together with the most recent crude inventories stats by region and give us an educated guess as to the impact at the pumps?

That is, should I be calling my relatives in Denver or Atlanta or California and telling them to top off their gas tanks now?

Sorry if this question has already been posed, I have asked it on drumbeat also.

Jeff Masters at Wunderground this morning states

"The only hurricanes on record that survived crossing this portion of the Yucatan and maintaining hurricane intensity were Hurricane Roxanne of 1995, which hit just south of Cozumel as a Category 3, and emerged near Campeche as a Category 1; and Hurricane Janet of 1955, which hit near Chetumal as a Category 5 storm, then weakened to a Category 2 storm when it popped out into the Gulf of Mexico south of Campeche."

Was Cantarell functional in 95, did it sustain damage then?

Dean is now a mid-level cat 1 hurricane with maximum sustained winds of 85 mph and may weaken a bit more before heading out into the gulf. It isn't going to significantly damage the oil and gas infrastructure.

Cyclone Gonu now seems like a decent point of comparison - effectively shut down Oman's oil exports and disrupted shipping for a few days.

Dean represents a potentially a more significant, but very short term disruption of Mexican oil exports.

Dean is down but not out.

From the 5 pm NHC advisory:
REPEATING THE 400 PM CDT POSITION...19.4 N...91.3 W. MOVEMENT
TOWARD...WEST NEAR 20 MPH. MAXIMUM SUSTAINED WINDS...80 MPH.
MINIMUM CENTRAL PRESSURE...970 MB.

From the 5 pm NHC discussion:
DEAN HAS EMERGED INTO THE BAY OF CAMPECHE. THE ADVISORY INTENSITY
OF 70 KT IS AGAIN BASED ON TYPICAL DECAY RATES...AND HIGHLY
UNCERTAIN. AN AIR FORCE RESERVE UNIT RECONNAISSANCE AIRCRAFT WILL
BE IN THE CYCLONE AROUND 00Z TO ASCERTAIN THE TRUE STRENGTH OF
DEAN. BASED ON SATELLITE IMAGERY...THE INNER CORE OF DEAN APPEARS
TO BE LARGELY INTACT...WITH DEEP CONVECTION DIRECTLY OVER THE
CENTER. THIS IS EXPECTED TO ALLOW RESTRENGTHENING TO BEGIN FAIRLY
QUICKLY...AND DEAN COULD BE VERY NEAR MAJOR HURRICANE STATUS BY THE
TIME OF ITS LANDFALL IN THE WESTERN GULF.

This gives some appreciation of the magnitude of the event, and our thoughts should be with the folks down there:

Dean Bears Down on Mexico´s Oil Industry
Tuesday, August 21, 2007 - 09:08 PM

By MARK STEVENSON
Associated Press Writer

FELIPE CARRILLO PUERTO, Mexico

Hurricane Dean swept across the Yucatan peninsula Tuesday, toppling trees, power lines and houses as it bore down on the heart of Mexico´s oil industry. Glitzy resorts on the Mayan Riviera were spared, but vulnerable Mayan villages were exposed to the full fury of one of history´s most intense storms.

President Felipe Calderon said no deaths were immediately reported in Mexico, after Dean killed 13 people in the Caribbean. But driving rain, poor communications and impassable roads made it difficult to determine how isolated Mayan communities fared in the sparsely populated jungle where Dean made landfall as a ferocious Category 5 hurricane.

Dean weakened over land but was expected to strengthen as its eye moved over the Bay of Campeche, home to more than 100 oil platforms and three major oil exporting ports. The sprawling, westward storm was projected to slam into the mainland Wednesday afternoon with renewed force near Laguna Verde, Mexico´s only nuclear power plant.

"We often see that when a storm weakens, people let down their guard completely. You shouldn´t do that," said Jamie Rhome at the U.S. National Hurricane Center. "This storm probably won´t become a Category 5 again, but it will still be powerful."

At 5 p.m. EDT, Dean had winds of 80 mph and was centered about 60 miles west-southwest of Campeche. The storm was moving west at 20 mph, the National Hurricane Center said.

While 50,000 tourists were safely evacuated from resorts on the Yucatan peninsula, many poor Indians closer to the storm´s direct path refused military orders to leave their homes, according to Gen. Alfonso Garcia, who was running shelters in Felipe Carrillo Puerto, 30 miles north of the eye´s path.

Troops evacuated more than 250 small communities, and 8,000 people took refuge in 500 shelters, said Jorge Acevedo, a Quintana Roo state spokesman. Others turned away soldiers with machetes and refused to leave, but some of them changed their minds when the winds and rain intensified, he said.

Little was known about the thousands who rode out the storm in low-lying communities of stick huts or the handful who hid from soldiers evacuating smaller resorts like Majahual, where Dean made landfall with 165 mph winds and gusts of 200 mph _ faster than the takeoff speed of many passenger jets.

Mexican officials said they were making slow progress down nearly impassable roads to reach these places. In less isolated towns, people emerged to survey toppled trees and downed power lines crisscrossing flooded streets.

"If only the government would lend us a hand," said Georgina Hernandez, 59, whose three children all lost their homes in the town of Los Limones.

Dean´s path takes it directly through the Cantarell oil field, Mexico´s most productive. The entire field´s operations were shut down just ahead of the storm, reducing daily production by 2.7 million barrels of oil and 2.6 billion cubic feet of natural gas.

Insured losses from the storm are likely to range between $750 million and $1.5 billion, according to Risk Management Solutions, which calculates hurricane damage for the insurance industry. Most of that came in Jamaica, which said Tuesday it was postponing Aug. 27 general elections to survey the damage.

Dean hit Mexico early Tuesday along a sparsely populated coastline, well to the south of major resorts. The brunt of the storm struck the state capital of Chetumal, where residents spent a harrowing night with windows shattering and heavy water tanks flying off rooftops. Sirens wailed for hours as the storm battered the city, hurling billboards down streets. The Federal Electricity Commission said 90,000 customers remained without power by midday.

Electricity was also out to most of Belize, where no deaths or major injuries were reported. Just south of the Mexican border in Corozal, Dean flipped a residential trailer, blew roofs from homes and flooded streets.

The latest forecast put the storm on target to hit land again Wednesday afternoon at Tecolutla, a coastal river town about halfway between Tampico and Veracruz. The area is an oil industry hub, dotted with derricks and pipelines on land and home to many of the workers who maintain seven oil platforms a half-hour helicopter ride offshore.

That´s 400 miles south of Texas, where only heavy surf was expected. The space shuttle Endeavour landed a day early Tuesday because of the threat NASA had once feared Dean would pose to Mission Control in Houston.

North of Veracruz is a strip of resorts known as the Emerald Coast, and seven more oil platforms are just offshore. Laguna Verde, Mexico´s only nuclear power plant, is only 35 miles to the south, and hundreds of buses stood by to evacuate workers if necessary.

Calderon cut short a trip to Canada so he could travel to the hardest-hit areas. President Bush, standing by his side at a summit in Montebello, offered U.S. aid.

"We stand ready to help," Bush said. "The American people care a lot about the human condition in our neighborhood, and when we see human suffering we want to do what we can."

Dean was the third-most intense Atlantic hurricane to make landfall since record keeping began in the 1850s. It had a minimum central pressure of 906 millibars, the third-lowest at landfall after the 1935 Labor Day hurricane in the Florida Keys and Hurricane Gilbert, which hit Cancun in 1988.

"A very low pressure indicates a very strong storm," said meteorologist Rebecca Waddington.

The deadliest storm to hit Latin America in modern times was 1998´s Hurricane Mitch, which killed nearly 11,000 people and left more than 8,000 missing, most in Honduras and Nicaragua.

___

Associated Press writers contributing to this report included John Pain in Miami; Richard Jacobsen in Poza Rica, Mexico; Karla Heusner Vernon in Ladyville, Belize; Lisa J. Adams in Mexico City; and Michael Melia in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

Other than the remarkable fact that the oil price went down after 2.5 million barrels per day of oil was temporarily shut-in, Hurricane Dean appears to be a non-event.

The real lesson here is what the market did. The value of the commodity (oil) is more and more divorced from its actual value. This does not bode well for our world because it will be more business as usual when the oil price falls. Yet another excuse for OPEC to do nothing.

Ultimately, I believe the market signal over the longer term does demonstrate peak oil, but the signal is not strong enough to prevent the inevitable crisis. Complacency or panic. And for now? The former. Later (when)? The latter.

Mexico City is in a lake bed right? This one looks like it's headed towards Mexico City. Any guesses what happens when this thing decides to unwind and release a couple million tons of water in central Mexico? Read Roar of The Heavens by Stefan Bechtel.

whoa

Tony

Hello TODers,

I would imagine it would be top-secret, classified, top-level only, Pemex executive and Mexican govt info, but couldn't a military spyplane be flying around Cantarell and KMZ right now taking detailed radar and infrared imagery of the offshore structures? A quick, but thorough analysis would reveal how many structures might be listing or sunk, or moved off-position, or maybe how much rigging and other equipment is twisted and inoperable. Any TODer expertise on this subject? Or do they have to wait until the 'cane passes, then do eyeball examinations only with helicopter and/or plane flybys?

Also, wouldn't pressure sensing equipment for the undersea pipelines show an immediate drop in PSI if Dean has wrenched them loose from the seafloor?

EDIT: Are military analysts allowed to have personal brokerage accounts to play the stock and futures markets? Imagine the coin you could make if you had detailed, early inside info even 2,4,6,12,24,36,72 hours ahead of the crowd when the official reports are released.

Bob Shaw in Phx,Az Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?

Looks like abcnews.com did some homework regarding oil and nuke infrastructure to be hit next.

The latest forecast put the storm on target to hit land again Wednesday afternoon at Tecolutla, a coastal river town about halfway between Tampico and Veracruz. The area is an oil-industry hub, dotted with derricks and pipelines on land and home to many of the workers who maintain seven oil platforms a half-hour helicopter ride offshore.

Veracruz has been Mexico's most famed Gulf port since the days of Hernan Cortez and is famed for its African-inflected music. Tampico, 260 miles up the coast, is a grittier port city, a center of Mexico's oil industry in its early days. Between the two is a land of fishing, farming and oil with a lush, palm-dotted shoreline, cut with rivers flowing into the usually placid Gulf of Mexico.

North of Veracruz is a strip of resorts known as the Emerald Coast, and seven more oil platforms are just offshore. Laguna Verde, Mexico's only nuclear power plant, is only 35 miles to the south, and hundreds of buses stood by to evacuate workers if necessary.

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/WireStory?id=3507451&page=3

Everyone keeps commenting that the "Oil Market" doesn't understand what's going on.

The fact is, an amazing amount of contracts are trading by momentum daytraders who don't know crap about the oil industry.

I did the math, and just today only, and just for 2 Exchange Traded Funds (USO, UNG), the total dollar amount of the transactions was, get this:

$307,207,721.60

The people buying and selling this stuff today probably have no idea what a Ghawar or a Canterell is and most likely don't care.

This is what the OPEC bulletin keeps saying month after month. The price movement is not based on fundamentals but rather speculative interests.

That's why I sold my oil positions yesterday. If CNBC tells the sheep that all the oil wells are spared, then that's what they're going to believe. You can bet against it if you want, but you're going lose your money. Other the other hand, tomorrow when CNBC says Canterell is trashed and we'll never see another drop of oil again as long as we live, it'll rocket to the moon.

A CBS morning financial show mentioned Dean & Cantarell by name and listed various US refineries (with b/day) that use Mexican oil. They said it was uncertain how long production would be shut in. They also said that the supply chain was vulnerable to even small disruptions.

That said, I am under-impressed by the wind speeds and storm surge from Dean yesterday and this morning. Little damage results from 95 and 100 mph winds (I have been through these), and evenly moderately hardened facilities can withstand 120 mph winds.

However, oil facilities are very complex and a single break in the chain stops production (the two oil export terminals on the East Coast of Yucatan seem quite vulnerable if not hardened). And steel structures exposed to salt water for 25 years are rarely "as designed".

My *GUESS* is a group of small problems that reduce Mexican oil production and exports below last week's levels for a month or more, but significant production and exports within a week. I would prefer a slightly bigger problem as a wake-up call.

Alan

http://www.ndbc.noaa.gov/show_plot.php?station=42055&meas=sght&uom=E

anyone see this wave height buoy data near Cantarell.

That's a rocking and rolling.

FF

This discussion has understandably been focussed on the short-term impacts of Hurricane Dean.

Taking a step back, it is of considerable concern that 5 of the most intense hurricanes ever recorded in the Atlantic Basin (as determined by minimum pressures) occurred in the past 4 years: Ivan, Katrina, Rita, Wilma, and Dean - of course all Category 5 hurricanes.

Since 2004 we are averaging more than 1 Category 5, Top Ten hurricane per season. Is this the new normal, and if so what are the implications for infrastructure and supply?