Rick: I couldn't agree more.  We were in a situation where we needed everything to go our way, and it's looking increasingly like they won't.

I've heard the predictions that say we're entering a 10- to 20-year cycle of higher tropical storm frequency (not caused by climate change) with stronger individual storms (an effect that is triggered by climate change).  

In more ways than one, 2005 could mark the beginning of a protracted period in which the world, and Americans in particular, have some difficult decisions to make, from the personal level up to and including public policy.

Everyone, look out your window.  This is what interesting times look like.

I think Ivan, Katrina and now Rita will force the majors with GOM exposure to dramatically reassess their costs of operation in the region:  platforms, wells, and pipelines will need to be built or upgraded to withstand stronger storm intensities.  It's no longer politically acceptable within these organizations to disregard the chance of a direct hit by a cat 4 or 5 storm, just as it took a near direct hit for NOLA to finally get backing for better flood protection.  I'm not a mechanical engineer but I work for a sensor company that develops structural health monitoring systems and I'd expect the cost of beefing up structures to withstand cat 5 versus cat 3 storm conditions would be considerable fraction of the total value.  Any comments from someone in the industry who knows?

I think it's safe to expect that most medium and long term projects in the region will have to expand their time and cost budgets, and some of the smaller marginal fields under consideration for drilling may get put on the shelf until the assumed oil or gas sale price rises enough to cover additional expenses.

Rick, I want add to your list more two potential disasters that are coming:

-- the macro-economic risk: the dollar dive, some economists fear that it will happen at the next 5 years...
-- the public health risk: there is a high chance that H5N1 will start a pandemic flu, that  avian flu virus just need adapt to humans (and evolution happens)...

Or maybe I am being a "doom sayer" ?

João Carlos

sorry my bad english, my native language is portuguese.