The hurricane season is underway. We knew it was going to be a bad one when the U.S. government predicted up to seven major hurricanes from the start of the season on June 1.
For context, an average hurricane season produces 14 named storms, seven of which become hurricanes. Three of those become major storms, marked by wind speeds of over 111 mph (178 kph).
Beryl last week became the earliest Category 5 storm on record before devastating several Caribbean islands. It then weakened before gathering strength again to become a Category 1. It made landfall early on Monday near Matagorda, Texas and was expected to weaken rapidly throughout the day.
Major ports in Texas closed ahead of the storm, including Corpus Christi, Houston, Galveston, Freeport and Texas city. All of these closures will have an impact on oil and fuel flows in and out of the production areas.
Some 1.4 million customers were without power in Texas as of Monday morning, according to local utilities and PowerOutage.us.
Enbridge, which operates large crude oil export facilities near Corpus, said its assets were operational but added it had activated emergency plans.
In the refining world, Citgo was cutting production at its 165,000 bpd Corpus Christi refinery, Erwin Seba reported, and said it would keep plant operations at a minimum while the storm passed.
Meanwhile, Freeport LNG on Sunday said it had ramped down production at its liquefication facility and intended to resume operations when it was safe to do so.
Some Gulf of Mexico oil producers, including Shell and Chevron, have shut in production or evacuated personnel. Right now, the impacts to Gulf oil production are unclear, but the government may provide an update on Monday.
Formosa Plastics experienced a malfunction at its facility in Point Comfort, Texas, according to a state regulatory filing.
After this storm passes, the waters of the Atlantic look quiet, at least for now. But weather-related events and natural disasters (there is a wildfire in Canada that shut oil sands production last week) are sure to test oil and gas infrastructure this season. Beryl may just be the start.
