Crude dips, gasoline spikes as floods knock out almost a quarter of US refineries
http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/markets/commodities/oil-dips-as-us-floods-cause-large-scale-refinery-shutdowns/article9835656.ece
Quote:
The largest refinery in the United States, Motiva Enterprises' 603,000 barrel-per-day (bpd) plant in Port Arthur, Texas, was shutting down on Tuesday night because of flooding.
Preparing for more rain and floods, Total has cut production in half at its 225,500 bpd refinery, also in Port Arthur.
Restarting plants even under good conditions can take weeks. Harvey has also delayed loading of liquefied natural gas (LNG) at Cheniere's Sabine Pass in Louisiana, the only US LNG export terminal.
Crude inventories
Beyond the impact of Harvey, the American Petroleum Institute (API) had said on Tuesday that US crude inventories fell by 5.780 million barrels last week, an indicator that the US oil market is gradually tightening.
The figures, however, do not reflect the impact from Harvey. Government data for last week is due to be published by the Energy Information Administration (EIA) later on Wednesday.
Traders said that EIA data would take weeks to fully reflect the impact of the storm and floods.
_________________
"There are a thousand things that can happen when you go light a rocket engine, and only one of them is good."
Tom Mueller of SpaceX, in Air and Space, Jan. 2011