Energy Prospectus

Harvey is now moving south over the Gulf of Mexico again. The winds have picked up in Sugar Land but the rain is light. High winds worry me because they can knock out the electricity.

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Joe explains why Harvey's new path is good news for Houston, especially the western half where we live and where Sabrina lives. However, the new path creates a major new threat for Galveston. To this point, Galveston has been spared.

I just got a note from Sabrina. Water was two feet high in the street in front of her home this morning, but it has gone down since the heavy rain has ended. She thinks they are going to be OK.

Our biggest threat is the Brazos River, which is expected to crest at 59 feet tomorrow. That is a new record crest, so no one knows for sure if the levees will hold. In June, 2016 the Brazos River crested at 54 feet and never got close to threatening our area.
See: http://fbcoem.org/news-release-evacuati ... lantation/

We have moved food, drinks and clothing upstairs in case we have to move quickly to "higher ground". We did try to find a way to evacuate the region but so many roads are closed it is impossible. Two friend in the area tried to leave and after hours trying several different paths they have returned home.

We just got an e-mail from the First Colony website that says all evacuation routes are closed and that we may not be able to get out of the area for seven days. We may be eating dog food or the dog by then.

Energy Firms Brace for Harvey Fallout. Wall Street Journal.
Harvey knocked almost 15% of U.S. refinery capacity out of commission, which threatens to boost fuel prices across the country. After slamming into Texas on Friday and causing massive flooding in Houston over the weekend, the storm was moving east on Sunday toward a refining hub near the Louisiana border. That could shut down even more of the U.S. energy infrastructure. Exxon Mobil Corp. closed its Baytown refinery, located on the Houston Ship Channel, when floodwaters paralyzed large portions of the area after Harvey was downgraded to a tropical storm from a hurricane. The plant is the second-largest refinery in the country, processing as much as 560,000 barrels of oil a day and feeding fuel into pipelines and barges that move it across the southeastern U.S. and up the East Coast. Harvey’s projected path as of Sunday night included an even bigger refinery in Port Arthur, Texas, that is owned by Saudi Arabian Oil Co. and produces 600,000 barrels of fuel a day. Several other companies confirmed that they stopped making fuel at plants in areas hit by Harvey, including Royal Dutch Shell PLC in Deer Park, Texas, and Brazil’s state-controlled oil company, Petróleo Brasileiro SA, in Pasadena, Texas. Those two plants produce a total of 435,000 barrels a day.


Cheniere Energy says Train 3 at Sabine Pass LNG export plant down. Reuters.
Production from train three at Cheniere Energy’s Sabine Pass liquefied natural gas (LNG) export plant has been suspended for maintenance, a spokesman for the U.S. firm said on Friday. The spokesman did not provide further details about the cause or impact of the outage, only adding that maintenance was a routine aspect of plant operations. “We continue to meet our obligations to customers,” he said. Traders variously speculated about the duration of the shutdown, ranging from three weeks to six months. The off-taker of volumes from Train 3 is Korea Gas Corp but deliveries have so far not shown any sign of being disrupted, a trader said. “They are using production from other trains to compensate for the maintenance,” he added.