CAUGHT BY AL-JAZEERA.COM
Beryl made landfall near a Texas town on Monday, posing problems for the heart of the US energy sector.
Following Hurricane Beryl’s devastating impact on the US Gulf Coast, which closed important shipping ports and severely damaged the oil refining and production industries, the energy industry in Texas was assessing her effects.
With maximum sustained winds of 129 km/h (80 mph), Beryl made landfall on Monday morning close to the coastal town of Matagorda, Texas, causing issues for the center of the nation’s energy sector.
Before making landfall, the storm had intensified into a Category 1 hurricane, but in the middle of the morning, it was downgraded to a tropical storm, and it was predicted to continue to weaken all day. The US National Hurricane Center (NHC) predicts that it will traverse eastern Texas later in the week and enter the Lower Mississippi Valley and Ohio Valley.
With over 40% of the nation’s oil production and 20% of its gas production, Texas is the state that produces the most oil and gas in the United States.
On Monday, US oil futures CLc1 ended the day 83 cents down at $82.33 a barrel as prospects of a cease-fire agreement in Gaza reduced concerns about global supply and limited gains resulting from interruptions caused by storms.
Since it seemed that the hurricane would not have much of an impact on the main refineries along the Gulf Coast thus far, US fuel futures were also trading lower.
More Read
Fuel marketer TAC Energy stated, “It appears that the threat of regional supply disruptions has passed since the storm has threaded the needle between the two major production hubs in Corpus Christi and Houston,” adding that only Phillips 66’s refinery in Sweeny, Texas, was affected.
ENERGY INDUSTRY HIT
According to Phillips66, the company is still reviewing its post-storm activities. the energy sector was hurt
The nation’s main center for the export of crude oil, the Port of Corpus Christi, shut down operations and vessel traffic over the weekend in anticipation of Beryl. Before the storm’s arrival, the ports of Texas City, Houston, Galveston, Freeport, and Galveston were all closed.
The Corpus Christi Ship Channel reopened at noon on Monday, with no noteworthy storm effects noted. According to Matt Smith, an analyst for the ship tracking company Kpler, several vessels were already returning to Corpus Christi to load, but he cautioned that it might take a day for traffic to resume.
According to a port statement, terminal operations at the Port of Houston were still suspended but might resume by Tuesday afternoon.
“We continue to face wind and rain,” a representative informed the Reuters news agency on Monday.
It was announced by Shell and Chevron that they had stopped producing or removing employees from their offshore sites in the Gulf of Mexico.
Approximately 1.8 million barrels of oil are produced daily in the US Gulf of Mexico, accounting for 14% of the nation’s total output. The extent of the output halt caused by Beryl was not immediately apparent.
