I would think that evacuees are going to have problems getting the gasoline to drive away from the storm(s).

Even if they could, they won't.

"After a helicopter trip over the Baton Rouge area, Public Service Commissioner Jimmy Field said the storm knocked down 20 of the area's transmission towers that follow the Mississippi River along the 80 miles between New Orleans and the capital.

"This was a perfect storm, if you wanted to destroy as much of the generation and the transmission alley that we have," Field said.

Entergy Corp., the region's top power company, agreed with Field's prediction about the Baton Rouge. By contrast, the company predicted that power would be fully restored in New Orleans on Monday."

http://www.businessweek.com/ap/financialnews/D93092700.htm

http://tropics.hamweather.com/2008/atlantic/ike/trackmap_zoom1.html

http://www.esl.lsu.edu/quicklinks/hurricanes/2008/IKE/images/Storm-09-Sp...

I'm putting Ike into Pascagula as a Cat 3.

Mobile, Cat 3

Bite your tongue. :)

Ed. Pensacola. No cats. One beagle.

Oklahoma City, Cat 1

Massive quantities of gasoline (some diesel) is going into generators. 31% of Louisiana w/o power as of last night. As power is restored, the generators often move to those still in need. Add the gasoline burned coming back and driving further to make groceries (I am fortunate with my 2.5 block walk).

OTOH, all but one refinery now has power and, according to Gov. Jindal, all went into "warm shutdown" that allows for oen day back into production once labor, natural gas, crude etc are available. Labor force is an issue at some refineries.

Distribution from refinery to station may be the weak link. Also "gas on the road" has been depleted.

Best Hopes,

Alan

11am update continues to make the threat to New Orleans more credible.

NHC just downgraded Ike to Cat 2 minutes before recon went in and found a strong Cat 3 with one surface reading supporting Cat 4. Looks very bad for Cuba right now.

Take care Alan (and everyone else in its path).

Been Lucky so far (knock on wood) this year, the 11am report has it going 162 miles south of me. Far enough that it should just be a little wind and we could use some rain.

Hanna took a nice curve off to the east around us before heading over to the U.S. We had about 30mph of wind from her.

Good Luck to all
Ed

5pm update is out. Ike track still homing ever more tightly on New Orleans vicinity. Latest NHC has a Cat 3 approaching the coast with the extrapolated track right over the city. Fortunately there's still a huge error cone but still...

As of now, Ike has just been upgraded again to a Cat 4. Someone is probably getting their arse kicked at the NHC for incorrectly downgrading it to Cat 2 earlier today without evidence. What is so unusual is that they normally would err too high with the comment "perhaps a little generous" rather than prematurely downgrade.

Alan, is their talk in NO of another evac yet?

I think Gustav and Ike are going to cause real inventory problems in every catagory

Over 90% of GOM oil production is still shut-in. With Ike heading for the GOM by Thursday will the operators bother to start up only to have to shut down again in 72 or 96 hours?

If Ike does come into the GOM and cause evacuations it could mean that GOM will be shut down for three weeks, if the markets can handle that disruption then we can say there is plenty of oil and NG in the market.

With respect to oil spot prices I wonder if some refiners have backed out of the market in the short-term, they lost a week of production due to Gustav, possibly another week to come, and the oil they had ordered prior to Gustav (as long as it wasn't GOM oil) will still be on the way.

I assume the refiners will try and make as much gasoline as they can in the next few days to help with the evacuation plans, it should help in New Orleans due to proximity, not sure about Florida.

Latest numbers from MMS (Sept. 6)

From the operators’ reports, it is estimated that approximately 87.5 % of the oil production in the Gulf has been shut-in. Estimated current oil production from the Gulf of Mexico is 1.3 million barrels of oil per day. It is also estimated that approximately 74.1 % of the natural gas production in the Gulf has been shut-in. Estimated current natural gas production from the Gulf of Mexico is 7.4 billion cubic feet of gas per day.

Most rigs / platforms now have crews (according to the same release)

Meanwhile, Entergy reports:

Total Customer Outages 400,611
Total Customers Restored since Sept. 1: 563,327 58%

Add back releases from the SPR. Enough to raise inventories to the desired level, slightly above MOL.

Alan