Hurricane Isaias is expected to make landfall near the Alabama Gulf Coast and Florida Panhandle on Friday evening, prompting oil and gas companies to take precautions against potential disruptions to Gulf Coast energy infrastructure, NPR reports.
Shell and BP have evacuated personnel from offshore platforms near the storm’s path, while Chevron has evacuated nearby drilling rigs and plans to redeploy them after the storm passes. ExxonMobil reports that operations remain normal. Although operators are implementing standard hurricane safety measures, including shutting off subsea safety valves and moving mobile drilling facilities when possible, analysts say the storm’s eastward trajectory should spare much of the region’s major oil and refining infrastructure concentrated farther west in Louisiana and Texas.
The greatest potential threat to fuel supplies may come from damage to onshore refineries. Two facilities in the storm’s path, Chevron’s Pascagoula refinery in Mississippi and the Vertex Alabama refinery, represent approximately 2.5% of total U.S. refining capacity and 5% of Gulf Coast capacity.Â
Pascagoula is particularly important for supplying airports across the Southeast. Refineries can take considerable time to restart after power outages or flooding because their complex, interconnected systems require continuous power and carefully managed operating conditions. The industry has experienced severe hurricane-related damage before, including Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005, which destroyed 47 offshore platforms.
