Tropical storm (sub-hurricane) winds are very unlikely to cause lasting damage. Even Cat I winds are not that big a deal. Surely Pemex built to at least that standard.

Wave action is also unlikely to be that large. Cantarell is on the "good side" of Dean according to latest projections.

I foresee a week to ten day shut-down of production (which will have an impact) and that is about it unless the path shifts south.

Further up the coast, with the second landfall, things will likely be worse.

Best Hopes for a Northerly track,

Alan

Professor Goose,
Thank you for staying on top of Hurricane Dean. In my opinion its way too early to be complacent about this storm, its not even hit the Yucatan yet all people seem convinced its still no threat to the United States.

These storms are so big and have so much energy they may behave differently from the models. IMHO its prudent for all Gulf Coast residents to keep watching until Dean it totally disappated after going inland.

I'm surprised that the oil markets seem so calm. Mexico supplies about 10% of the oil imported into the US, and more than half is produced from the area of the storm track projection. Yet the word is to sell contracts, according to CNBC even though PEMEX is shutting in the fields.Bob Ebersole

http://science.reddit.com/info/2gv3j/comments

if you are so inclined...

These days I watch MSNBC in the morning. The Financial reporter was apparently hired because she is cute - she repeatedly says things that are either stupid or misleading. I am guessing that she just parrots the thinking of the folks on Wall St. without really understanding it very deeply.

Last week she had a comment to the effect that "people should be aware that if we try and clean up the lead paint issues, that prices at wal-mart will increase". Well she got beat up over that one, and Jon Stewart even made fun of it.

This morning she was ragging on all of the talk of reducing foreign imports, and how most of our imports come from Canada and Mexico, and little comes from other countries. Almost like she was saying that it was all a fuss over nothing I guess. Apparently nobody bothered to tell her what 'fungible' means.

She was also talking about how the financial community was relieved that the hurricane was missing U.S. oil & gas rigs in GOMEX, but she never stopped to consider that it was going for Mexico's, and what that might mean.

Khebab
Thanks for the great work!
A friend who has fished down there said its like 20 feet deep out 2 miles or so - If true that might make a hurricane in their a bit more problematic - do you have ability to get water depths, since you are a Google-Earth Master???

Wall Street says "Move along folks...nothing to see here."

Crude Oil Falls as Hurricane Forecast to Miss Gulf Platforms

By Matthew Leising

Aug. 20 (Bloomberg) -- Crude oil fell after forecasters said Hurricane Dean would probably miss the largest oil-production regions of the Gulf of Mexico.

Dean, an ``extremely dangerous'' Category 4 hurricane, is heading for Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula after leaving a trail of damage across Jamaica, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said. The Gulf of Mexico accounts for more than a quarter of U.S. oil output, mostly off the Texas and Louisiana coasts.

``You can see the storm is heading south into the Yucatan,'' said Tom Bentz, a broker at BNP Paribas in New York. ``The models are showing there's a slightly greater chance it doesn't hit the refineries in the Gulf of Mexico. If the storm is not in the picture, this thing goes down.''

They go on to predict $67 oil and no production increase from OPEC in September.

The first GE image shows Dean passing just north of the Cantarell complex. Since hurricanes are cyclonic and cyclones in the northern hemisphere rotate counter-clockwise, Dean should be pulling water from the gulf to the Cantarell platforms (i.e. winds at the platform will be out of the northwest/north).

Which is much worse than if the wind were blowing offshore.

Batter UP!

INVEST 92L - http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/gtwo_atl.shtml

MODELS -

No recurving likely, no shear, warm water for development - East coast and Florida path.

http://www.wunderground.com/tropical/tracking/at200792_model.html

Just another one to watch.

Comments from a weatherboard I follow re Cantarell:

1. The oil field is on the south side side of the storm which is less intense
2. The oil fields are pretty close to the eastern shore of the bay of campeche which means they will experience Dean shortly after it exits the yucatan or in other words at it's weakest.
3. The farther S Dean tracks, the more time he will decay over the Yucatan, and the weaker he will be upon emergence into BoC. i.e., the farther (to the N) from Cantarell Dean enters BoC, the stronger he will be, but also the farther from Cantarell the eyewall will be. If Dean's eyewall scores a direct hit on Cantarell, he will be pretty weak by that time. If Dean actually passes just S of Cantarell, he may not even be a 'cane by the time the RFQ hits Cantarell, and would still be land-locked and weakening.

Update (14:30 EDT):

The president of Mexico ordered the evacuation of the platforms in the Campeche area yesterday. Thats 13,000 men who must be picked up by crew boats, travel home, take care of their families (I'm sure most of them live near Campeche), then travel back to the crew boat docks and be taken back to their workplaces. This is going to take a minimum of a week, more likely two, even if there is zero damage from the storm before the wells are back on line.

Since 70% of Mexico's production is from offshore in this area, and the rest will be needed for domestic consumption, that means the US will be short of oil about 10% for the next couple of weeks. As the stocks are already low, this means another big price spike, if not some actual shortages, probably in the Houston area as we refine most of the heavy crude in this part of the world because of transportation costs.

People who think this is insignificant are wearing blinders. It takes time to move that many guys by crew boat, and Mexico did the prudent thing starting yesterday even though Dean won't hit the bay of Campeche' until tomorrow. The storm will keep people off the crew boats until Friday or Saturday,more if their homes are damaged or the roads impassable, then it will take two or three days to restaff and start the wells again, assuming no damage. The projection Khebab just posted shows a direct hit, although no one will know for sure until Dave emerges from the Yucatan into the Gulf again.
Bob Ebersole

Found this:

"Shutting the 407 oil wells in the Campeche Sound will result in a production loss of 2.7 million barrels of oil and 2.6 billion cubic feet of natural gas a day, Pemex said. Of that, about 1.7 million barrels of oil a day is exported from three Gulf ports, where Pemex was loading the final tankers Monday morning before shutting them as well."

here: http://apnews.myway.com/article/20070820/D8R4UU680.html

Let your views be known: www.cafepress.com/crashdummy

From MarketWatch

Lacking Concern

Although "Dean will spare much of the Gulf of Mexico's key U.S. [energy] facilities, many of Mexico's will be hard hit," Kerr said in emailed comments. "If the storm is a Category 5, it will most certainly damage facilities there." "We have to remember that we depend on every drop of oil from every region being at full capacity," said Kerr.

"We have to remember that we depend on every drop of oil from every region being at full capacity," said Kerr.

Given that, the market doesn't seem to be as concerned as it should be about Dean, said Neal Ryan, a manager and market analyst for Ryan Oil & Gas Partners.

Dean is set to "roll right over the top of the largest Pemex fields on its current path: Cantarell and the Chicontepec Basin," said Ryan, in emailed comments. Pemex is short for Petróleos Mexicanos, Mexico's state-owned petroleum company.

``I don't expect there'll be any significant damage'' to oil production said Gerrit Zambo, an oil trader at BayernLB in Munich, adding that U.S. crude may drop to $67 a barrel if the hurricane threat abates...

``I'm really bearish on crude, like a $15 to $20 per barrel decline between now and December,'' said Daniel Lippe, president of Petral Worldwide Inc. in Houston. ``We're not going to have the disruption of crude production in the Gulf of Mexico to the extent people thought we were, so there's an easy downside for crude.''

Bang 'em together

Excellent post Khebab.

At 916 mb Dean is set to crack the top ten most intense storms in Atlantic Basin history - I would not underestimate this storm! Big question is, whether the PEMEX field has ever seen wind/waves of the magnitude it is likely to see from Dean.

The NHC forecast has Dean emerging into the Bay of Campeche as a Cat 1 hurricane with sustained winds of at least 75 knots, and is anticipating significant reintensification in the Bay.

From the NHC discussion:
DEAN IS EXPECTED TO MAINTAIN
HURRICANE STRENGTH AS IT TRAVERSES THE YUCATAN PENINSULA...AND
APPROACH MAJOR HURRICANE STRENGTH AGAIN BEFORE ITS FINAL LANDFALL.

If the fetch is such that the reintensifying hurricane's winds are raking the PEMEX field, then significant damage is likely.

Its now a Category 5 storm with sustained winds of 160mph. It looks as though it will exit the Yucatan as at least a category 1 storm

Dean has now intensified to Category 5 status, with sustained winds of over 250 km/hr. It's pressure at 914 mb makes it the 9th most intense Atlantic Basin storm in recorded history. Further intensification is possible before landfall overnight..

The 11PM update is up, and it doesn't look good. The forecast has the eye passing directly over Cantarell, with peak windspeeds of 98mph.

A potential nightmare scenario is developing, with the NHC forecast track of Dean (currently an intensifying Category 5 hurricane) going straight across the Yucatan and emerging just north of the Cantarell complex on the evening of the 21st. Dean is predicted to emerge into the Bay of Campeche as a Category 2 hurricane, and to reintensify in the Bay. Winds will be in excess of 100 mph backing from north, through northwest, to westerly - maximizing fetch the whole time.