Wednesday, September 10, 2008

In the Path of Ike

Americans (61%) seem to want more offshore drilling and Big Nancy Pelosi is ready to accomodate them with a vote on opening the southeastern coast to offshore driling with some major strings attached like eliminating $17 billion in tax subsudies, but look at this graphic from Oildrum.com: The red line is the projected path of hurricane Ike as it moves into the central Texas coast. Red spots are rigs and platforms that will be damaged or destroyed by the hurricane. Blue spots are installations that will require evacuation and green ones are one that need to be shut in. Yellow are those requiring inspection before restarting. It does not seem to make a lot of sense to put 6% of the global refining capacity in the path of frequent and intensifying hurricanes.