Oil flows in pipelines
Posted by Heading Out on September 22, 2005 - 1:17am
The second concern was with the pipelines that carry the oil once it arrives onshore, both to, and then on from, the refineries. Some of the pipelines leaving the refineries carry the oil out up through the East Coast.
There is developing evidence, as they are being tested, that a greater percentage of the offshore pipelines survived intact following Katrina than was the case a year ago when Ivan came to visit. In the same way, with the aid of a telephone call from the Vice President's office, the major supply pipeline, to Washington and the North East region was almost immediately brought back into production. However, as we noted at the time, that pipeline, the Colonial starts in Houston. Thus although the threat to the oil production and refining has moved west, the impact may be more significant this time up in the North East.
Although, fortunately, we still have the LOOP functional in real life, we have lost a fair amount of GOMEX production. Should Rita strike Galveston, then it will also hit the Ship Channel, and thus we may still lose some ability to import oil, as well as, with the loss of refineries, the ability to process it.
But there is an additional concern that should be recognized and that our industrial source commented upon last time. Even if the refineries are not exposed to the long term flooding in Texas that we are still seeing in Louisiana, there is only a certain amount of skilled work force available to do repairs. Further a large portion of their support infrastructure just got destroyed. Thus the rate at which the rebound will occur is now likely to slow considerably, since the resources to achieve the response are few and already over-stretched.
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That's putting it mildly, don't you think, HO? Understatement is always best, I suppose. People don't panic or freak out or go crazy, do they? Given "we may still [will] lose some [a lot of our] ability to import oil, as well as, with the loss of refineries, the [~25 % of our] ability to process it".
But, we'll hope for the best, won't we?
Thus I am a little cautious about being too vociferous in my concerns, since there are a lot of people running themselves ragged trying to solve these problems as they arise. (I am reminded that necessity is the mother of invention). But it will be interesting to see, if they have refinery problems in Houston, whose apple is pulled from the bin to feed Washington.