This is the latest MMS estimate (yesterday's) of damages available at this time:

Sept 1 (Reuters) - Hurricane Gustav, the first big threat to U.S. Gulf of Mexico energy and port infrastructure since Katrina and Rita in 2005, made landfall west of New OrleansMonday morning. [nN01292385]
The following outlines the impact on the energy sector:

*****HIGHLIGHTS*****
*96.3 percent of U.S. Gulf of Mexico oil output shut
*82.3 percent of Gulf of Mexico natgas output shut
*27 percent of U.S. refining affected, 11 percent shut, 16 percent at reduced rates.
*433,600 Entergy customers lose power
*No damage assessments yet
*US waives gasoline standards in parts of Texas and Louisiana, ready to release emergency crude

*****CRUDE OIL, NATURAL GAS*****
*96.3 percent of U.S. Gulf of Mexico's 1.3 million barrels per day crude output shut as of Sunday, according to U.S. government.
*82.3 percent of the Gulf's 7.4 billion cubic feet per day natural gas output shut as of Sunday.

*****REFINING*****
*Ten refineries with capacity of 1.9 million bpd shut
*Eight refineries with capacity of 2.8 million bpd at reduced rates

REFINERIES NOT PRODUCING FUEL:
*ExxonMobil 193,000 bpd Chalmette, Louisiana.
*Murphy 120,000 bpd Meraux, Louisiana
*ConocoPhillips 280,000 bpd Lake Charles and 195,000 bpd Alliance, Louisiana, refineries
*Motiva 236,000 bpd Norco, Louisiana; 235,000 bpd Convent, Louisiana refinery on standby.
*Marathon 250,000 bpd Garyville, Louisiana.
*Calcasieu shut its 80,000 bpd Lake Charles, Louisiana
*Alon 80,000 bpd Krotz Springs, Louisiana
*Valero 250,000 bpd St. Charles, Louisiana

REFINERIES AT REDUCED RATES:
*ExxonMobil 503,000 bpd Baton Rouge, Louisiana; 567,000 bpd Baytown, Texas; 349,000 bpd Beaumont, Texas
*Citgo 430,000 bpd Lake Charles, Louisiana
*Valero 325,000 bpd Port Arthur, Texas; 130,000 bpd Houston, Texas, 245,000 bpd Texas City, Texas
*Motiva 285,000 bpd Port Arthur, Texas

*****ELECTRIC POWER*****
*Entergy says 433,600 of 1.9 million customers without power, 101,500 in evacuated areas, 332,600 in southeast and southwest Louisiana.
*Entergy's Waterford 3 nuclear plant shut Sunday night; River Bend nuclear plant powered down to 75 percent due to lower electricity demand.

*****SHIPPING AND PORTS*****
*Louisiana Offshore Oil Port stopped unloading ships Saturday and shut flows from storage Sunday
*Houston Ship Channel closed to inbound traffic at midnight Sunday (0500 Monday GMT), all outbounders already gone
*Mississippi River traffic at New Orleans halted inbound at noon (1700 GMT) Saturday, outbound as of 6 p.m. CDT (2300 GMT).
*Traffic at Lake Charles, Louisiana, halted Sunday
*Traffic at Beaumont and Port Arthur, Texas, halted Sunday
*Gulf Intracoastal Waterway closed Mississippi to Florida

*****PIPELINES*****
*Explorer Pipeline says entire 700,000 bpd products pipeline, Gulf Coast to Chicago, available Monday night
*El Paso's said its Tennessee and Southern Natural gas pipelines offshore throughput cuts total 2.5 Bcfd.
*TEPPCO's 340,000 bpd products line from Texas to Northeast cuts run rates, Beaumont distillate line down.
*Henry Hub natural gas trading hub shut Sunday.
*Enbridge (ENB.TO: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) (EEP.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) stopped taking natural gas production Saturday on systems with 6.7 Bcfd capacity.

Damage related stories from Drumbeat:

Louisiana Refiners to Take Days to Resume Full Supply (Update1)

(Bloomberg) -- Louisiana refineries that shut down before Hurricane Gustav may take up to 10 days to resume operations because of a lack of power, stunting fuel production at a time when regional gasoline inventories are at a 10-month low.

Marathon Oil Corp., Valero Energy Corp. and other refiners that shut plants as Gustav swept through the Gulf of Mexico won't know the extent of any damage until today at best. Exxon Mobil Corp. shut its Baton Rouge plant, the second-largest U.S. refinery, after winds snapped power lines.

On first scan, little oil damage seen from Gustav

HOUSTON (Reuters) - Several major U.S. refiners said early checks on Monday showed their facilities were unharmed by Hurricane Gustav, but at least two others were said to be considering dipping into the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve to keep operations going after the storm shut down key waterways.

Gustav weakened to Category 2 before roaring ashore near Port Fourchon, Louisiana, on Monday, potentially sparing the kind of damage that the region's platforms, rigs and refineries suffered at the hands of more powerful Katrina three years ago.

Offshore operators said remote sensors indicated that major platforms remained where they were moored before the storm, although Shell, the region's largest producer, said it may take three to five days to restore production.

"Meanwhile, the Colonial Pipeline was operating at reduced rates Monday evening because its Baton Rouge facility was shut following a communications failure and another booster station in the central Louisiana vicinity was evacuated, a spokesman said."

http://www.cattlenetwork.com/Content.asp?ContentID=249038

Estimates regarding insured losses, from this article:

The California risk management consulting firm Eqecat Inc. estimated Monday that Hurricane Gustav would generate $6 billion to $10 billion of insurance claims, primarily in Louisiana, after making landfall.

The California insurance consulting firm Risk Management Solutions Inc. issued even lower projections Monday evening of $3 billion to $7 billion in insured losses on land from Gustav.

Meanwhile, the Boston consulting firm AIR was working on downgrading its initial estimates issued Sunday of anticipated losses of $11 billion.

Those figures don't include estimates of flood damage, which is covered separately by the National Flood Insurance Program, or estimates of damage to offshore energy facilities.

Regarding impact on reinsurers, Reuters reported the following:

"Gustav is more of an earnings event for reinsurers," Chris Waterman, a senior director in Fitch's Insurance Group in London told journalists, rather than a catastrophe that knocks a hole in the industry's capital.

"Most reinsurers would plan for this kind of event. It's probably in line with their estimates," said Waterman.

Here's the complete history of Gustav's wind, gust and central pressure, 25 Aug to 02 Sep 2008, with the time over the Gulf of Mexico highlighted (red to blue to reflect the cooler waters northward):

And here's the record of Gustav's movement speed:

-best,

Wolf

This is the press release from Chuck Watson's company (posted yesterday) regarding the total amount of damages. These damages include things like damages to roads and bridges that are not included in insured damages.

Kinetic Analysis Corporation estimates the impact of Hurricane Gustav on Oil production in the Gulf of Mexico.

Kinetic Analysis Corporation (KAC) is forecasting a shortfall of 17 million barrels of oil (MMBBL) for the month of September, based on an expected loss of 40% of normal Gulf of Mexico Production due to Hurricane Gustav. The Gulf of Mexico normally produces 33.6 MMBBL of Oil out of 155 MMBBL produced domestically. Only 138 MMBBL are expected to be produced in September. With imports averaging 300 MMBBL per month, and refining usage at 458 MMBBL, approximately 20 MMBBL would have to be tapped from stocks during the month of September to maintain current usage levels.

We expect production to be back up to to 95% by the end of the year. We expect a long-term production loss of approximately 3%, since Gustav's swath went through some areas that Ivan, Katrina, and Rita missed, and older, less productive wells that suffered damage will probably not be restored to operation.

The LOOP terminal, source of 25% of US oil imports and the only VLCC class supertanker port on the US East Coast, was directly in the path of the storm. In addition to damage to the offshore port itself, the connection pipelines to shore are also vulnerable to storm damage. Our baseline estimate is 10-14 days downtime for the port itself. As there is some potential for undersea slumping and scour, pipeline disruption is possible and could further aggravate supply issues.

For refineries and distribution, mainly short-term disruption is expected due to precautionary shutdowns; no long term impacts are expected unless there is significant disruption of the pipelines. Flood-related delays in repair and restoration due to high rainfall rates are possible if the storm lingers in the impact area.

Storm total damage (residential, commercial, and infrastructure) is estimated at $35-40 Billion.

Here are two short YouTube video's from Port Fourchon.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXQTyXKR5Bo

and

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ovK_ddafsM0

If the links don't work search on Gustav Fourchon.

Paul

We've posted an interactive web map of the swath of hurricane-force winds and whose production/pipelines were most at risk--

http://www.gulfimpact.com

Of particular interest was how the storm passed over some of the high-dollar deepwater assets of Shell, BP, and ENI.

Thanks,

Brian

Exxon: No restart schedule for Baton Rouge refinery

HOUSTON, Sept 2 (Reuters) - Exxon Mobil Corp said on Tuesday no time has been set for the restart of its 503,000 barrel per day (bpd) Baton Rouge, Louisiana, refinery, which was shut by Hurricane Gustav.

Exxon spokeswoman Premlata Nair and Exxon Baton Rouge refinery spokesman George Pietrogallo both said the refinery was doing preliminary checks of the refinery and adjoining chemical plant complex.

"Baton Rouge is conducting a preliminary site assessment to determine the impact of Gustav," she wrote in an email. "We are assessing restart options, but are unable to provide a restart schedule at this time."

This just goes to show how much downward pressure there is on oil prices right now. With the largest supply disruption of the year, the price still falls by a record amount. The price of oil right now is lower than it was even before anyone heard the name Gustav.

Forbes.com is reporting that the Port Fourchon police drove down the road LA 1 to Port Fourchon and report the road and the port are not severely damaged. Other info in the article.

http://www.forbes.com/business/2008/09/02/gustav-highways-energy-biz-cx-...

Tuesday, Port Fourchon's police were able to use the road to enter the port. "The port and LA 1 are not severely damaged, and water has receded," the Port Fourchon Police Department said in a press release Tuesday afternoon. "Upon quick visual inspection it appears there is no major structural damage to port, and it will begin minimal operation in the next couple of days."

Major damage reported outside of New Orleans

It could be a day or more before oil and natural gas companies can assess the damage to their drilling and refining installations. Jindal said as much as 20 percent of oil and gas production that was stopped because of Gustav could be restored by this weekend, stressing that it was a rough estimate.

To the east of the city, state officials were unable to reach anyone at Port Fourchon, a vital energy industry hub where huge amounts of oil and gas are piped inland to refineries.

Came in from helping clean up neighborhood (work best done before the heat of the day).

Caught end of discussion with Plaquemines Parish President about problems with private levee that endanger a refinery (Conoco Philips ?) and natural gas pipeline that supplies 5% of US supply. Unfortunately missed the "meat" of the discussion.

New Orleans is operating as an electrical island with 3 fossil fuel plants (our nuke is still down).

FEMA briefing coming up.
------
100% of oil production (1.3 million b/day) shut in. 95% of natural gas production of 7.4 trillion ft3 also shut-in. Some production back on-line in a week, 100% in two weeks if no problems are discovered today and tomorrow.

Alan

Sensors indicate no major oil rig damage - API head

ST. PAUL, Minnesota (Reuters) - Sensors on oil rigs and platforms in the Gulf of Mexico indicate no major damage to those facilities from Hurricane Gustav, although flyovers and more detailed physical checks will still have to be made, American Petroleum Institute President Red Cavaney said on Tuesday.

"It does not appear any of those are off-station," Cavaney said in a telephone interview with Reuters on the sidelines of the Republican National Convention which he is attending.

Cavaney said that several thousand rigs and platforms were outfitted with the transponders following the 2005 hurricanes that badly battered the Gulf Coast.

There were no indications that pipelines serving the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve were damaged by the storm, Cavaney said, which would help facilitate any oil company requests for emergency crude oil loans from the stockpile.

Louisiana Oil Refineries May Take 10 Days to Start Up, Sapping Fuel Supply

(Bloomberg) -- Louisiana refineries that shut down before Hurricane Gustav may take up to 10 days to resume operations because of a lack of power, stunting fuel output at a time when regional gasoline inventories are at a 10-month low.

There's a report from the US Army Corps of Engineers that there are two ships and two large barges stranded on top of a 16" natural gas line in one of NO's canals. According to them, the gas line services the entire US (which doesn't sound correct, 16"?).

Doesn't say whether the pipe was damaged or not, or what effect it will have on its usage.

Kinder Morgan La. natgas line under force majeure

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Kinder Morgan Energy Partners' KMI.N NGPL Louisiana natural gas pipeline was under force majeure on Tuesday due to complications from Hurricane Gustav, a company spokesman.

The pipeline was currently operating at 66 percent of normal capacity, with two compressor stations shut due to loss of power, Kinder Morgan spokesman Joe Hollier said.

The company was trying to restart the compressors, which have not been damaged, with generators, but did not have a restart date set.

Entergy says 5 of 12 refineries have no power

HOUSTON (Reuters) - Entergy Corp officials said on Tuesday five of 12 refineries in Louisiana have no electricity due to extensive damage to Entergy's high-voltage grid from Hurricane Gustav.

Four refineries in the region have power and three have power, but shut for other reasons.

Shell says Convent refinery needs power, repairs

Shell said it could begin restarting some processing units at its 220,000 barrel per day oil refinery in Norco, Louisiana, in the "next couple of days" and hopes to ramp up production rates at its 290,000 bpd joint venture Motiva refinery in Port Arthur, Texas " as soon as possible".

But it said its 235,000 bpd Motiva refinery in Convent, Louisiana, is without power and "restart of the refinery will depend on further assessments, repairs that are needed and availability of dependent resources."

Well, the Saints are marching in on Sunday, so everything will be better by then, yes?

Dow Jones Newsire reports:

12:19p EST
Coast Guard:Air Survey Finds No Gulf Platform Damage-Bloomberg

The U.S. Coast Guard said an aerial survey of oil and natural-gas platforms and rigs in the Gulf of Mexico saw no structural damage and no oil spills, Bloomberg reported Tuesday, citing Coast Guard Chief Petty Officer Adam Wine. "All the rigs off Louisiana appear to be in good condition," he said, adding that some oil sheen, possibly from a partly sunken tug boat, had been seen on the lower Mississippi.

At 5:30 PM, without an announcement, State Police and National Guard units were told to abandon checkpoints preventing re-entry in New Orleans and other areas.

Gov. Jindal apparently vetoed the efforts by Nagin and the Parish Presidents to control re-entry.

This should speed the labor force to restart operations at refineries and other oil infrastructure.

Alan

Also a series of small F1 tornadoes in Jefferson Parish.

thank you for all the work everyone is doing, this is excellent information. i've been gradually succeeding in getting my friends to start frequenting this website and i think it's been getting through to them because of the determination and diligence of many who frequently post here, stories as well as comments.

i don't have any information to add about gustav's repercussions, except that i haven't been hearing detailed coverage of it from anywhere else. it's unfortunate, because like many things PO related, it's hard to learn more unless you spend time with places like theoildrum.

"The Dude" posted this, dated Sept. 1, on another thread:

Speaking of the SPR: O&G Journal: Gustav idles 12% of US refining capacity

Nineteen of the 22 major gas pipelines serving the gulf had declared force majeure, idling operations an all offshore segments of their systems.

The Sabine Pipeline gas system declared force majeure because of mandatory evacuations in Vermilion Parish, location of all of its receipt and delivery points and of the Henry Hub interconnection, the delivery point for gas-futures contracts on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

Also closed were the Strategic Petroleum Reserve facilities at Bayou Choctaw and West Hackberry, La., and at Big Hill, Tex. The Bryan Mound, Tex., SPR facility remained in operation.

The DOE office noted that 28 major gas processing plants lie in the path of the storm and were shutting down because of mandatory evacuations in Louisiana and shut-down of gathering lines.

Dow Jones Newsline reports:

6:03p EST
Noble Corporation Reports on Initial Survey Following Hurricane Gustav

SUGAR LAND, Texas, Sept 02, 2008 /PRNewswire-FirstCall via COMTEX/ -- Noble Corporation (NYSE: NE) announced today that a preliminary assessment conducted by airplane this morning revealed no apparent damage to the Company's five deepwater units operating in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico. The Company expects to complete a more comprehensive assessment of individual rigs, including the Company's three submersible units, over the next few days. It is anticipated that crew members will begin returning to their assigned rigs later today and that, subject to helicopter and crew boat availability, normal operations will be resuming as soon as possible.

"Our first priority offshore is the safety of our teams," said Noble Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer David W. Williams. "In a major storm event, our focus turns to safely evacuating our personnel and securing our rigs to protect the environment. Once these priorities are achieved, we can turn our attention to resuming normal operations as quickly as possible."

Noble, in cooperation with its customers, initiated evacuations on August 27 and safely evacuated approximately 630 Company workers, contractors and third-party personnel from its rigs in the Gulf of Mexico prior to the storm's arrival.

oil going down regardless of this storm. speaks volumes about the state of the market. oversupplied at the current price comes to mind. the price will continue to fall until the market balanced. OPEC meeting next week. i bet they do nothing.

http://www.forbes.com/reuters/feeds/reuters/2008/09/02/2008-09-02T220626...
Citgo asks for oil from emergency US oil reserve
09.02.08, 6:06 PM ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Citgo Petroleum Corp, owned by the Venezuelan state oil company, is the only oil company so far to ask for emergency crude oil from the U.S. emergency petroleum stockpile in the aftermath of Hurricane Gustav, the Department of Energy said Tuesday.

Citgo asked for 250,000 barrels of crude oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve for its refinery in Lake Charles, Louisiana. The refinery's crude oil supply was disrupted when the Calacasieu Ship channel was closed. The channel was reopened Tuesday but was restricted to ships with a draft of 16 feet or less.

"The request is currently being reviewed," an energy department spokeswoman said. "Once the request is approved they will go into negotiations to deliver and ultimately replace the oil."

After Rita, power problems were a major factor delaying restart of refineries in the Port Arthur area. A lot of transmission lines were destroyed and rebuilding took a few weeks.

Power loss was also a factor in the product pipeline problems post Katrina.

It sounds like Gustav has caused a lot of power system damage, and this is likely to cause a lot of problems for refineries, natural gas processing and pipelines. I suspect that damage to the onshore infrastructure may have a much bigger impact than damage to offshore platforms.

However, power loss also reduces natural gas demand. Much of the power generation in that part of the world is natural gas fueled. If refining and chemicals plants are shut down then that reduces NG demand further. The net impact is a smaller hit to the NG market than might be expected.

i don't remember seeing http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/refresh/graphics_at4+shtml/025014.shtml?table posted here before - the NHC has a table of probabilistic strength of a cyclone wrt time eg. TS Ike has a 22% chance of being cat 2 on Thursday.

DOW JONES NEWSWIRES
September 2, 2008 7:03 p.m.

HOUSTON (Dow Jones)--The Calcasieu Channel is open to inland traffic and vessels with 16-foot drafts, but oil tankers with deeper drafts than that can't transit the waterway, a U.S. Coast Guard spokesman said Tuesday afternoon.

The channel serves the Lake Charles, La., refineries.

Lake Charles, located along the Louisiana-Texas border, was spared most of the serious damage of Hurricane Gustav.

Parish officials lifted the mandatory evacuation order at noon Tuesday.

According to this AP article

Jindal hopes the opening of the oil reserve helps reverse a severe shortage of fuel, particularly in south Louisiana. Long lines at gas stations have formed in many areas hit by the storm, because many don't have electricity and can't pump.

The action will release 250,000 barrels of oil to a Citgo refinery in Lake Charles.

I am wondering how releasing crude oil will fix an electricity outage.

Too Soon to Return, Evacuees Told

Massive power outages were among the most immediate problems, with some towns completely without electricity. More than 130 transmission lines and dozens of substations were knocked out of service, meaning Gustav was surpassed only by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005 in the destruction caused to the region's electric grid.

About 1.4 million customers are without power in Louisiana, and vast portions of the New Orleans and Baton Rouge metropolitan areas have been knocked off the national electricity grid, said Kevin Kolevar, assistant secretary of energy for electricity delivery and energy reliability.

Of immediate concern were about a dozen hospitals that had limited electricity service, raising the possibility that some of the 800 patients will need to be evacuated — in addition to the hundreds already removed to more secure facilities, Jindal said.

1.5 million without electricity in Louisiana. Power companies expect half to be reconnected within 1 to 8 days, the other half in 8 to 10 weeks. According to Gov. Jindal.

Certainly looks like there's been some serious damage to the electrical network.

Several good maps over at Rigzone.com

See: http://www.rigzone.com/news/hurricanes/gustav.asp