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Another hurricane, more refineries and strikes
Publication year - 2005
Publication title -
oil and energy trends
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 1744-7992
pISSN - 0950-1045
DOI - 10.1111/j.1744-7992.2005.301106.x
Subject(s) - oil refinery , refinery , environmental science , downstream (manufacturing) , upstream (networking) , economic shortage , crude oil , waste management , agricultural economics , environmental engineering , engineering , operations management , petroleum engineering , government (linguistics) , economics , telecommunications , linguistics , philosophy
This section summarizes downstream developments of the previous month. Exploration & Production are covered in 'Upstream Review'. Another hurricane ‐ this time called Wilma ‐ interrupted oil supplies to the US. Whilst the storm itself generally avoided the US, it damaged marine installations at the Bahamas Oil Refining Company's terminal which supplies up to 200,000 bpd of low sulphur fuel oil (LSFO) to the US and Puerto Rico. The loss of supplies from BORCO comes at a bad time for US electricity generators, several of which have been switching out of gas into LSFO following the spike in gas prices caused by damage to US Gulf production following previous hurricanes ( see 'The Month in Brief', September 2005 ). Another major supplier of LSFO, Brazil, has cut deliveries to the US, diverting 45,000 bpd to Argentina, where a shortage of natural gas has increased demand for fuel oil. LSFO is not the only concern for US consumers. Refinery shutdowns in the US Gulf mean that the US is short of middle distillate going into the winter heating season. The Bush administration is now considering the establishment of a series of regional product reserves across the United States. The stocks would be held at refineries and would be sufficient to cover a loss of gasoline and middle distillate supplies lasting for five days.