Oil companies in Texas restoring operations following hurricane Beryl (updated)
09/07/2024 13:07
(Updates power outages in Texas, details on operations at
various energy facilities, Beryl weakening)
By Marianna Parraga, Arathy Somasekhar and Erwin Seba
HOUSTON, July 9 (Reuters) - Oil and gas companies in
Texas were restarting operations on Tuesday after Hurricane
Beryl lashed the state with 80-mph winds, damaging property and
leaving millions of people without power.
Beryl made landfall early on Monday near the coastal town of
Matagorda. Some energy firms shut operations ahead of its
arrival and Texas' largest ports and navigation channels closed.
However, its impact on oil and gas production is expected to be
minor.
On Tuesday, ports were set to reopen, and some producers and
facilities were ramping up output after preventively cutting
down processing. Some were limited by slow restoration of power
to homes, businesses and industrial customers.
About 2.2 million customers remained without power in
Texas early on Tuesday, according to PowerOutage.us, including
some 1.8 million served by the state's largest provider,
CenterPoint Energy CNP.N .
The figure was more than double the number of customers that
lost power in May when a weather event bringing strong winds hit
Houston. It took more than a week for those outages to be
resolved in some city neighborhoods.
CenterPoint, which said the hurricane resulted in
"widespread power outages," warned customers that the power
interruptions might last for several days due to the severity of
the storm.
FLOODING TO EASE
Texas is the largest U.S. oil and gas producing state,
accounting for some 40% of oil and 20% of gas output, and is
also a major shipping and refining hub. Any weather-related
interruption could have an impact on crude and fuel production
levels, as well as imports and exports.
However, flooding in city regions was expected to ease as
water began receding quickly after Beryl's severe rainfall,
which surpassed 11 inches in some areas south of Houston.
Most refineries in Houston and Texas City are designed to
maintain operations even amid heavy rainfall, but some of those
facilities, ports and other energy infrastructure can develop
problems from sustained power interruptions, according to
experts.
Citgo Petroleum temporarily reduced production over the
weekend at its 165,000-bpd Corpus Christi plant.
Marathon Petroleum Corp MPC.N began preparing on Monday to
restart multiple units at its 631,000-bpd Galveston Bay oil
refinery in Texas City, while Phillips 66 PSX.N reported that
units at its 265,000-bpd Sweeny refinery were operating normally
after some disruption caused by Beryl.
Formosa Plastics said on Monday it had temporarily shut
down operations at its Point Comfort plant site.
Shell SHEL.L and Chevron CVX.N started redeploying
personnel evacuated from their Gulf of Mexico platforms.
The Port of Corpus Christi reopened ship navigation on
Monday afternoon, but the Port of Houston said its terminals
would remain closed on Tuesday after conducting a preliminary
assessment of facilities and systems.
Freeport LNG, the third largest liquefied natural gas
facility in the U.S., has not provided an operational update
since it said it ramped-down production on Sunday.
Beryl lost strength to become a tropical depression late on
Tuesday, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said. The storm will
bring heavy rainfall and possible flash flooding from the lower
and mid-Mississippi valley to the Great Lakes Tuesday into
Wednesday.
(Reporting by Marianna Parraga, Arathy Somasekhar and Erwin
Seba in Houston; additional reporting by Swati Verma; Editing by
Liz Hampton, David Gregorio and Susan Fenton)
((marianna.parraga@thomsonreuters.com; +1 713 371 7559; Reuters
Messaging: @mariannaparraga))