IEA and US thoroughly analysing impact of Hurricane Ike - 15 September 2008

After Hurricane Ike hit the Gulf of Mexico this weekend, the IEA and the United States are jointly assessing the extent of the possible damage on oil and gas production facilities and refinery/gas processing installations. The US Energy Department continues to provide information of lost production of crude oil and refined products to the IEA. The analysis is still going on and may take some time. In the meantime, the US Government is supplying crude oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) to a few refineries in need of those supplies, but the requests for SPR oil so far have been limited. Only once the full extent of impact of Hurricane Ike and possible losses becomes clear, can it be decided whether a co-operative action of IEA countries will be necessary. If needed, the IEA stands ready to react quickly and to provide oil to the market as it did after Hurricane Katrina in 2005. The Gulf region plays a key role in US energy supply. Total crude production from federal waters of the US Gulf of Mexico amounts to some 1.3 million barrels per day (mb/d), equivalent to 25% of total US crude output. Refinery distillation capacity on the Gulf Coast amounts to over 8 mb/d, around 47% of the US total. For natural gas, federal offshore waters account for around 7.5 bcfd of national production, some 12% of the total, with Louisiana (6%) and Texas accounting for significant quantities as well. According to well established procedures, oil and gas companies had evacuated platforms and shut in production as a precautionary measure ahead of the storm. Refining capacity had similarly been shut-down ahead of Ike's landfall. Since the 2005 hurricanes, both industry and the US government have implemented measures to improve response and to strengthen and protect energy infrastructure, including vital power supplies. The IEA is continuously updating this website as new information become available.