The Oil Drum | Hurricane Dean's Impact on Oil Infrastructure

51 comments on Hurricane Dean's Impact on Oil Infrastructure

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AlanfromBigEasy on August 20, 2007 - 8:47am

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

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ianwhitchurch on August 20, 2007 - 8:51am

OK, I'll buy a weeks shutdown from a cat 1.

Whats a cat 2 going to do, given Janet in 1955 hit Yucatan as a cat 5 and exited west as cat 2 ?

Ian Whitchurch

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oilmanbob on August 20, 2007 - 9:02am

ianwhitechurch,

I have no personal knowledge of the design standards of offshore platforms in the area, but hurricanes are not rare. Pemex has 13,000 workers that have been evacuated, I would susoect that it will take a week after the hurricane passes to get them back and things back to normal, and the hurricane is still in the Carribean moving west at 20 mph, according to www.weatherunderground.com
I expect lower production through Sept. 1
Bob Ebersole

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ericy on August 20, 2007 - 9:08am

Perhaps they were built to withstand something stronger than this, but the question I have is how well these things have been maintained. Without proper maintenance, the rigs could be significantly weaker than they were when originally built.

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PeakTO on August 20, 2007 - 10:20am

Alan,

I think you are right, not much damage will happen. Especially if it comes out as a CAT1 over cooler waters.

Any production shutin will be very temporary.

Echoing below, Dean still could do something unexpected. But Dean's track has been a straight line so far.

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westexas on August 20, 2007 - 10:47am

Regardless of what Dean does, the Export Land Model (ELM) decline in net exports from Mexico is proceeding. The EIA shows that Mexican net exports declined from 1.9 mbpd in 2004 to 1.7 mbpd in 2006 (Total Liquids), a decline rate of 5.5% per year.

Because of the Cantarell production decline/crash and because of Mexico's relatively high consumption as a percentage of production, I actually expect Mexico to show a net export decline rate that is comparable to the ELM decline.

Remember, the ELM (for a hypothetical country) shows that the decline rate in net exports should accelerate with time.

BTW, I just noticed something interesting. The initial decline rate in net exports from Mexico, from 2004 to 2005, was 11%. The decline rate from 2005 to 2006 slowed quite a bit, because domestic consumption fell--probably because of a decline in cash transfers from Mexican workers in the US (because of the US housing slowdown).

The initial first year decline rate in the ELM is about 12%.

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51 comments on Hurricane Dean's Impact on Oil Infrastructure

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