A Little Energy Clarification

On one hand we’ve been hearing these rosy “the pipelines from the Gulf are fully operational” and on the other, secondhand reports from a cousin who works for Chevron that they got schmacked badly. So what’s really up? The weekly fuel inventory report contained some industry stats.

Chevron Corp. said Wednesday it has restored oil and gas production in the Gulf to about 40 percent of its pre-hurricane levels. Also, Royal Dutch Shell Ltd. said its 340,000-barrel-a-day Deer Park, Texas, facility was already up and running, boosting output before the winter.
But Exxon Mobil Corp. said its shut-in natural gas volumes had decreased from 545 million cubic feet a day last week to a current 495 million cubic feet a day. Around 50,000 barrels of oil production remain halted, ExxonMobil said.
As of Wednesday, 70 percent of daily oil production in the Gulf and 59 percent of natural gas production remained blocked as platforms and rigs recover, according to the Department of the Interior’s Minerals Management Service.
Since Aug. 26, the region has lost more than 55 million barrels of oil, or 10.2 percent of its annual oil production, and 277 billion cubic feet of natural gas, or 7.6 percent of annual gas production, MMS said.

Pipelines up are all well and good only if there’s something to run through them.

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