Radical Noesis - Thinking outside the box

The article says that we have lost about 10% of U.S. gasoline supplies, and that natural gas prices are likely to jump 40% (from current costs) by winter.

'The American Petroleum Institute estimates that about 58 oil and gas platforms and drilling rigs in the Gulf of Mexico have been damaged, including Shell's Mars deepwater platform.

"Mars is a much larger producer than the fields which were damaged by Hurricane Ivan, " Kim said. He warned that damage estimates so far are based on purely visual assessments and the true extent of damage may be far greater. "Only when you reman the platforms and push the start button will you know the damage level. It's early estimates, but the numbers look quite staggering . . . these are three times greater than with Hurricane Ivan.""

Marathon Oil - which has both rigs in the Gulf, and seven refineries in the impacted area - reports significant damage the it's three South Pass platforms (RigZone, 9/05/05). Marathon also has 650 employees affected by Katrina, which may also hamper recovery efforts.

The impacts on gasoline, in particular, may be moderated by international release of gasoline and crude stocks from their strategic supplies. Those announcements seem to have at least moderated the run-up in crude costs. Whether reality will play out to the hoped for relief remains to be seen.