If Beryl Causes Refinery Closures on the US Gulf Coast, the Biden Team Will Have a Whole Lot More Issues to Deal With (Currently, It’s Just Chaos in Washington
HNewsWire:
As Cat 4 Hurricane Beryl approaches Texas, significant oil refineries could be at danger.
On Wednesday morning, Hurricane Beryl was reduced from a Category 5 storm on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale to a Category 4 hurricane by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) National Hurricane Center (NHC). Whirling across the southeast Caribbean Sea, Beryl is the first storm in history to strengthen into a Category 5. Beryl is expected to hit the Yucatán Peninsula on Friday, endangering US energy and vital infrastructure along the Gulf Coast.
Beryl’s winds peaked at roughly 157 mph, according to the NHC, and then decreased to 145 mph on Wednesday morning. The storm is expected to weaken slightly over the next day or two, according to government weather forecasts, but it will still be classified as a “major hurricane” when it makes landfall on “Jamaica on Wednesday and the Cayman Islands.”
On Wednesday, Shell made the announcement that it had temporarily halted certain drilling operations in the Gulf of Mexico in preparation for the hurricane. According to Bloomberg, here is more:
Additionally, as a preventative step, the company started evacuating staff who were not essential.
Additionally, Shell is removing employees who are not needed from the Whale asset, which is not expected to begin operations until later in this year.
The HOOPS Blend is a medium sour oil that contains 29.2 percent volatile petroleum extract (API) and 1.55% sulfur. It is produced at the Perdido platform, which is controlled by Shell.
Through the Hoover Offshore Oil Pipeline System (HOOPS), oil is transported from Perdido to the Quintana terminal, which is located south of Freeport, Texas. From the Quintana terminal, oil is transported to the Houston refining hub, however it is primarily distributed to the Texas City area.
Despite the fact that the trajectory and strength projection of Hurricane Beryl over the western Gulf of Mexico this weekend is still uncertain, there is still uncertainty. In the most recent report, the National Hurricane Center (NHC) warned that those with interests in the western Gulf of Mexico, especially southern Texas, should keep an eye on how Beryl is progressing.
The course that the hurricane will take in the future along the coast of Texas, which is home to 32 oil refineries, is depicted by computer models. When it comes to the transformation of oil into products like gasoline and diesel, refineries are absolutely necessary.
“We have to wait and see where it lands,” Mark Schieldrop, a spokesperson for the travel club AAA Northeast, said in an interview with the daily The Record.
Schieldrop further explained, “But if the storm makes a direct hit to oil and gas infrastructure, it could cause prices to go up here if refineries down there are knocked offline for more than a few days.”
At the beginning of storm season, we wrote a letter with the subject “La Nina Will Complicate Things For Biden Ahead Of Elections As Hurricanes Threaten Oil Refineries,” and that is precisely what could occur the following week.
A single large hurricane is all that is required to for major refineries along the Gulf Coast of the United States to be disrupted, which may cause the average price of gasoline at the pump to reach the politically sensitive level of $4 per gallon.
If Beryl leads to refinery shutdowns on the US Gulf Coast, the Biden administration will face a multitude of additional problems (at present, there’s already chaos in Washington).
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Author: StevieRay Hansen
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