flooding

Storms that form in the Gulf of Mexico (GOM) during hurricane season don’t just dissipate once they make landfall and can inflict havoc on onshore assets. Storm damage and flooding can delay plant restarts, but so can power outages, as we saw when Hurricane Beryl hit the Texas/Louisiana region in July. And while there were no major refining or production assets in the path of Hurricane Helene, which slammed into the Florida Panhandle on September 26, widespread damage illustrated the potential risk to onshore infrastructure. In today’s RBN blog, we will examine how hurricanes have disrupted onshore assets and explain why power restoration is often the Achilles’ heel in plans to resume normal operations.

Trans Mountain Pipeline, the only pipeline that connects crude oil production areas in Alberta to Canada’s West Coast and the U.S. Pacific Northwest, has started to resume operations after a three-week shutdown. The pipeline closure — the longest in TMP’s 68-year history — began November 14 after major flooding exposed portions of the 300-Mb/d conduit, which also carries some refined products. Fortunately, Trans Mountain did not suffer any severe damage, breaks, or spills, and its operators were able to initiate a phased restart on December 5 at reduced pressures. Full service is expected to be restored soon. So what happens when a primary source of crude oil to five refineries — four in Washington state and one in British Columbia — is removed from service with little notice? In today’s RBN blog, we discuss the impacts.