Hurricane Rita gained strength
Wed Sep 21, 2005 13:38
64.140.159.74
NOAA: Hurricane RITA
http://www.noaa.com/
Hurricane Rita gained strength
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Dollar Weakens on Concern About Damage From Hurricane Rita
Bloomberg - 6 hours ago
21 (Bloomberg) -- The dollar fell the most in three weeks against the euro and dropped versus the yen as Hurricane Rita, whose strength may match the costliest ...
FOREX-Dollar weakens on post-Fed unwinding, Rita fears Reuters.uk
Dollar Declines on Concern Damage From Rita Will Slow Economy Bloomberg
Forex - US dollar falls in Asian trade as Rita fears wipe out post ... Forbes
Bloomberg - Bloomberg -
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New Orleans evacuated as Rita nears
Scotsman, United Kingdom - 2 hours ago
HURRICANE Rita strengthened to a dangerous Category 3 storm today, sparing the Florida Keys, but prompting mandatory orders to once again evacuate New Orleans ..
http://news.scotsman.com/international.cfm?id=1973082005
Crude prices spike as Hurricane Rita upgraded
MSN Money - 58 minutes ago
Crude prices spiked higher on Wednesday as Hurricane Rita gathered pace and stayed on course to sweep through oil fields in the Gulf of Mexico and strike at ...
http://moneycentral.msn.com/inc/news/providerredir.asp?feed=FT&Date=20050921&ID=5131142
Oil, Gasoline Rise as Hurricane Rita Shuts Gulf of Mexico Rigs
Sept. 21 (Bloomberg) -- Crude oil and gasoline rose as producers in the Gulf of Mexico, including ConocoPhillips, Exxon Mobil Corp., and Marathon Oil Corp., evacuated staff and shut rigs and platforms in the path of Hurricane Rita.
The storm is forecast by the National Hurricane Center to cross the Gulf and grow as strong as Hurricane Katrina, which wrecked rigs and closed refineries in Louisiana and Mississippi last month. Rita's track is further south than Katrina and may extend to Texas, which produces a quarter of the nation's refined fuel, by Friday.
``Rita is more an issue for refining than it is for production,'' Adam Sieminski, an oil strategist at Deutsche Bank AG, said in London today. ``There are more refineries in Texas than there are in Louisiana,'' so damage could ``possibly'' be more severe than after Hurricane Katrina.
Crude oil for November delivery rose as much as $1.40, or 2.1 percent, to $67.60 a barrel in after-hours electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. It traded up 87 cents at 9:27 a.m. in London. Prices are 42 percent higher than a year ago.
Oil reached a record $70.85 a barrel in New York on Aug. 30, a day after Katrina struck the Gulf coast. The futures leapt 7 percent two days ago, the biggest one-day gain since December 2001, when the National Hurricane Center said Rita was likely to strengthen on its way to the coast of Texas.
Yesterday, the November contract fell 2.2 percent as the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries said it will make additional crude available.
Gasoline for October delivery today rose as much as 4.7 percent to $2.07 a gallon in electronic trading, after falling 3.2 percent yesterday. It traded at $2.0450 a gallon, 59 percent higher than a year ago.
Rita Landing
While Rita is forecast to land anywhere from Corpus Christi to Galveston, Texas, it may veer east and strike Louisiana's coast, the center said yesterday. The threat to the region devastated by Katrina prompted New Orleans's mayor to halt plans for residents to return and Texas officials to call for some evacuations.
Rita's winds strengthened to near 115 mph (185 kph), making it a Category 3 storm, and may reach Category 4, or at least 131 mph later today, according to the National Hurricane Center today. Katrina was a Category 4 storm with 140 mph winds when it hit Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama three weeks ago, killing more than 950 people.
Galveston County, 50 miles southeast of Houston, plans to begin mandatory evacuations today, county officials said.
Texas Refining
``If this becomes a Category 4 or 5 storm, we can expect the same type of damage in this area'' as with Hurricane Katrina, said Frank Gutierrez, the homeland security coordinator for Harris Country, Texas, where Houston is located.
Texas' 26 refineries have the capacity to process 4.6 million barrels of crude oil a day, or 26 percent of the U.S. total, according to the Energy Department. Most are located along the arc of the Texas coast in the Corpus Christi, Houston and Port Arthur areas.
``That arc is probably 600 miles,'' said New Wave's Mennis. ``And Rita's going to hit somewhere in those 600 miles.''
About 30 percent of U.S. oil production comes from offshore platforms in the Gulf, while the region accounts for 24 percent of the country's natural gas output.
Katrina shut as much as 95 percent of the oil and 88 percent of gas output from the region as offshore platforms and coastal processing plants were evacuated. As of yesterday, 58 percent of Gulf oil production was idle, about 2 percentage points more than the day before, as oil companies evacuated staff from Gulf facilities in Rita's path, the U.S. Minerals Management Service said.
Cushion Concern
Concern about lost production from the Gulf has been heightened by the lack of a cushion of extra supply from other producers, including OPEC.
The group, which pumps about 40 percent of the world's oil, agreed at its meeting in Vienna yesterday to effectively suspend its quota system for the first time since the 1990 Gulf War.
OPEC estimates its members can pump another 2 million barrels a day, enough to supply the U.K., Europe's second-largest economy. The offer of additional barrels starts Oct. 1 and lasts three months.
``The deal means that individual country quotas are scrapped for three months,'' Warwick Schneller, an analyst at Sydney-based Commodity Warrants Australia Pty., said in a report today. ``The move by OPEC is unlikely to have any real pricing impact as higher oil prices are reflective of tightness further down the supply chain, i.e. a lack of refinery capacity.''
Most of OPEC's additional barrels will have to come from Saudi Arabia, because most other members are operating at their limits. Most of the additional oil is heavy, sour crude that many refineries are unable to process.
``They probably do need to discount that heavy crude more,'' said New Wave's Mennis. ``It's hardly worth refining a heavy barrel,'' as the yields are too low, he said.
Saudi heavy crude oil for delivery in the U.S. sold for about $55.05 a barrel yesterday, an $11.18 discount to the New York futures contract. That discount has widened by about $3.75 since July.
Created by Rita D. Haberlin
Department of Geography
College of Alameda
555 Atlantic Ave
Alameda, CA 94501
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Sept. 20, 2005, 3:29PM
Just-settled evacuees may have to flee again
By KEVIN MORAN and BECKY BOWMAN
Wednesday, September 21, 2005 Updated 11:24 a.m. CDT
Big Easy warily optimistic it's not in Rita's path
Troops began pulling out of New Orleans Tuesday and military ships prepared to sail in preparation for Hurricane Rita as local officials expressed relief about the latest storm's projected path away from eastern Louisiana.
http://www.chron.com/content/chronicle/special/05/katrina/index.html
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