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US Tariff Dashboard

US Tariff Dashboard 2416 1118 adapt ready

In recent months, the United States has aggressively pursued a protectionist trade strategy by introducing sweeping changes to its tariff policy—specifically targeting imported automobile components. Effective May 3, 2025, a flat 25% universal tariff will be imposed on all imported auto parts, in addition to existing country-specific duties. This marks a significant escalation in protectionist measures aimed at incentivizing domestic production and reducing reliance on foreign suppliers.

However, this shift poses significant operational and financial challenges for an industry that has long relied on global supply chains for efficiency and cost. Most major automobile manufacturers depend heavily on global sourcing: even vehicles assembled domestically often contain up to 70% of foreign-sourced parts. On average, 45% of vehicles sold in the U.S. are imported, with locally built vehicles also relying heavily on components from countries such as Mexico, China, Germany, India, and Japan—all now facing elevated tariffs.

The new tariff framework does not replace existing duties; it adds on top of them, compounding their financial impact. Below is a snapshot of the effective tariff rates faced by key supplier countries:

Country Effective Tariff Rate Notes 
China Up to 170% Highest on record; multiple layers of tariffs applied 
Germany, India, Japan ~35% 25% auto parts tariff + 10% universal tariff 
Mexico Up to 50% 25% on non-USMCA goods + additional sectoral tariffs 

For manufacturers, these elevated rates directly increase input costs. For example, a component that previously cost $100 could now cost up to $270 if sourced from China—a staggering increase that ripples across the entire production budget.

Consider one of the Big Three American automakers operating one of their largest manufacturing facilities in the US. The plant produces a mix of SUVs and electric vehicles, relying heavily on components from Mexico, China, Germany, Japan, and the United States.

If the current cost for a mid-size SUV is around $45,000, approximately 57% of that cost comes from parts and raw materials. With about 70% of those components now exposed to higher tariffs, production costs could rise by approximately $5,000 per vehicle—even before factoring in additional inflationary pressures like tariffs on imported steel and aluminum.

This sharp increase in production costs could significantly impact the vehicle’s competitiveness in a crowded and price-sensitive market. Beyond a single facility or automaker, the consequences will be industry-wide:

  • Consumer affordability could decline, leading buyers to seek alternatives with lower tariff exposure. 
  • Brand loyalty and market share could shift as buying patterns adjust to new cost dynamics. 
  • The automotive sector may face challenges in maintaining pricing strategies while adapting to these increased costs.

The following are potential strategies for manufacturers to mitigate the impact of these tariffs:

  • Further diversify their supply chains: Explore alternative sourcing options outside high-tariff regions. 
  • Invest in domestic production: Increase manufacturing capacity in the U.S. to reduce reliance on imported components. 
  • Negotiate trade agreements: Engage with policymakers to advocate for favorable trade terms or exemptions.

Ready to Navigate the New Tariff Landscape? 

Adapting to today’s rapidly evolving tariff structures can be complex and time-consuming. That’s why we created the U.S. Tariff Dashboard—a smarter way to assess risks, model costs, and make strategic decisions confidently.

With Adapt Ready’s platform, you can:

  • Instantly Identify Your Supply Chain’s Weakest Links. 
  • Access Real-Time Tariff Data — No Manual Research Needed. 
  • Simulate “What-If” Scenarios for Smarter Budgeting. 
  • Discover Lower-Cost Alternative Suppliers in Minutes 
  • Benchmark Your Exposure Against Industry Peers 

Update — April 29, 2025:

Following an executive order by President Trump, key adjustments were made to soften the impact of the auto parts tariffs. Notably:

  • Tariff stacking is restricted: The 25% auto parts tariff will not be compounded with existing steel, aluminum, or USMCA-related duties.
  • Tariff credits apply to U.S.-assembled vehicles: Automakers assembling cars in the U.S. with ≥85% domestic/USMCA content can receive credits up to 3.75% of MSRP in the first year, tapering to 2.5% in year two.
  • Implication: Manufacturers producing vehicles domestically may partially offset increased costs, improving resilience and competitiveness.

While this executive order offers short-term relief, challenges remain for companies with global sourcing models and non-U.S. production bases. Strategic supply chain diversification and domestic investment are still critical.

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Facing The Eye of the Storm: The Aftermath of Hurricanes Helene and Milton

Facing The Eye of the Storm: The Aftermath of Hurricanes Helene and Milton 2560 1336 adapt ready

A Look at Hurricane Milton

Milton made landfall on Wednesday evening south of Tampa as a category three storm with winds up to 120 mph, significant storm surge, and life-threatening flash flooding. According to the Financial Times, insurance losses could top $60 Billion as the hurricane stays on its projected path.

Potential industrial impacts from Hurricane Milton
Fig 1. Industrial impact from Hurricane Milton

Insurance implications after an already busy 2024 hurricane season could result in an increase in policies and an impact on insurers’ profitability in some cases.

The Aftermath of Hurricane Helene

According to Artemis, Gallagher Re is projecting that insurance market losses from Helene will rise to the mid-to-high single-digit billion-dollar level, higher than its initial pre-landfall forecast. As recovery efforts continue, loss estimates are expected to fluctuate.

Fig 2. Impact to manufacturing from Hurricane Helene

The water damage from the multi-state hurricane has been calamitous, both as it relates to coastal surge and inland flooding. Additionally, the rainfall in Georgia, the Carolinas, Tennessee, and southern Appalachia has resulted in flooding that made history.

Helene has created significant property and casualty losses and also caused major semiconductor and supply chain disruptions on a global scale with many industries both directly and indirectly impacted by the major storm. Below, Adapt Ready dives into an analysis of this impact on a state-by-state overview.

Florida Big Bend

Fig 3. Impacts in the Big Bend region
Fig 4. Companies directly or indirectly in Helene’s impact zone

The top five industries impacted in the Florida big bend region include: Machinery and Manufacturing with over 300 facilities between them, Automotive at 60+ facilities, Chemical at 50+ facilities, and Aerospace with nearly 50 facilities.

Large organizations with potential direct disruption at their facilities as a result of Hurricane Helene include Robert Bosch, Samsung, and Hitachi.

Indirect exposure also has significant supply chain and business interruption implications. In the big bend region of Florida, with the top impacted industries being Manufacturing, Automotive, Pharmaceutical, Machinery, and Semiconductor.

Georgia

In the state of Georgia, the most exposed industries include Chemicals, Manufacturing, Machinery, Automotive, and Pharmaceuticals. Potentially impacted facilities include those belonging to Milliken & Co, Wilo, DSM-Firmenich, and Wayne Pharmaceuticals.

As an extension of the supply chain impacts, Helene’s potential indirect impacts reverberated on industries including Semiconductor, Electronics, Manufacturing, Automotive, and Machinery.

North Carolina

In the state of North Carolina, as with Georgia, Hurricane Helene impacted the Manufacturing, Machinery, Automotive, Chemical, and Pharmaceutical industries, including potential downtime at facilities belonging to BorgWarner, Lubrizol, and Glenmark Pharmaceutials.

The hurricane was a cause of concern to the world’s semiconductor and solar panel manufacturing industries, given that the state produces high-purity quartz essential to those industries. After a two-week shutdown, Sibelco restarted its mining and processing operations at Spruce Pine.

Across all of the impacted states, Manufacturing, Machinery, and Automotive are the three most consistently affected industries dealing with major disruptions from Helene.

Adapt Ready’s Differentiating Value

During this time of catastrophic loss and uncertainty, it’s an important reminder of how interconnected the world is.

Adapt Ready is closely monitoring the developing losses as a result of Helene and is actively monitoring the potential impacts of Hurricane Milton. We are keeping an eye on global supply links while helping our customers map the possible fall-out, ensuring they have a clear picture of the risk facing their operations, and identifying viable solutions to mitigate their supply chain weaknesses.

We know that many of the losses experienced in the insurance industry are a result of supply chain and business interruption. That is why we have developed a bespoke, integrated solution that closes that gap for Underwriters, Risk Managers, and Brokers globally.

Our end-to-end platform effectively maps locations that may experience exposure and overlays different hurricane considerations along with estimated storm surge and other natural catastrophes. These insights are critical for proactively managing risk and can help manage total outcomes by reducing loss costs.

Adapt Ready’s Risk Intelligence & Analytics Platform, Aria, is powered by Artificial Intelligence and Big Data analytics, combining critical components that allow us to map the global supply chain and energy infrastructure, seamlessly offering a suite of products on top of Aria.

These products:

  • Analyze upstream, midstream and downstream dependencies to optimize portfolio risk, making the entire process highly cost-effective.
  • Address Business Interruption and Contingent Business Interruption across the Supply Chain. Our risk intelligence helps plan for the appropriate insurance coverage, provides guidance on risk management practices, and offers proactive risk monitoring – all of which are critical in an evolving risk management landscape.
  • Apply the latest advances in climate science to uncover climate risks in supply chains and portfolios.

Contact 

To better understand how the Adapt Ready platform can be used to quantify risk and plug the data gaps in global risk exposure, and catastrophic management, please contact us to schedule a demo.

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When the ground shakes: mapping the impact of the Taiwan earthquake

When the ground shakes: mapping the impact of the Taiwan earthquake 150 150 adapt ready

This week came the devastating news that Hualien City, on the east coast of the island of Taiwan, had been hit by a powerful, 7.4 magnitude earthquake. The quake toppled buildings, ripped apart roads and left at least ten dead and nearly one thousand injured (at the time of writing), and it was the largest to hit the island in twenty-five years.

Though a relatively small island by geography, Taiwan is a major hub for the importation and exportation of goods, with trade valued at $901bn in the year 2022.  Over 40% of this trade is accounted for by just three countries, China, the United States and Japan.

Some of the world’s largest companies rely on Taiwan for the manufacture and supply of their components and products including Apple, Cisco, Bose, Bosch, Caterpillar, BMW, Airbus, Rolls-Royce and Daimler.

Any major disaster to hit the island will inevitably cause some level of disruption to this busy supply chain. Risk and insurance managers worldwide need to carefully monitor the unfolding situation and consider how damage to the country’s buildings and infrastructure may negatively impact their own businesses, reviewing their business continuity plans to ensure they can mitigate as much of this disruption as possible.

Exposing vulnerabilities

Taiwan is one of the largest producers of semiconductor chips in the world, and though this week’s seismic activity occurred on the Eastern coast of the island, reports suggest that some of the country’s semiconductor giants located on the Western coast were forced to evacuate their staff from machinery plants, temporarily halting production across a number of sites.

In 2023, the top ten countries importing these semiconductor chips from Taiwan (by value) were: China, Malaysia, USA, South Korea, Japan, Vietnam, Thailand, Germany, Mexico and Singapore.

Though we don’t believe that this temporary cessation will have an immediate significant impact on the global production and supply of semiconductor chips, the event exposes the vulnerability of the manufacturing and export of these essential components. With such a large percentage of the world’s manufacture and supply of semiconductors concentrated in a small area, one known to be at high risk of seismic activity, we see a significant vulnerability that could threaten the production of mobile phones, laptops, tablets and other essential communication tools.

Possible disruption to energy supplies

We understand that the Ho-Ping port, serving the Ho-Ping coal plant, located on the East coast of Taiwan suspended operations at the time of the quake, but if the plant itself ceased operations or suffered any physical damage, energy supplies to the North of the county could be impacted.

The Changbin and Datan onshore wind farms are also located close to the epicentre of the quake, if they suffered physical damage to their buildings and equipment or disruption to their operations, energy supplies in the country could be further impacted.

When major disasters occur, we are reminded of just how interconnected our world is, highlighting vulnerabilities we may not even have considered.  In the case of Taiwan, the concentration of semiconductor manufacture and supply could prove costly for risk managers in the event of an earthquake, or volcano, not only if buildings themselves are damaged, but if the power plants fuelling them are impacted.

As the situation in Taiwan unfolds, we’ll be keeping an eye on global supply links and will be helping our customers to map the possible fall-out, ensuring they have a clear picture of the risk facing their operations, and identifying viable solutions/alternatives to mitigate their supply chain dependencies/weaknesses.

To better understand how the Adapt Ready platform can be used to quantify risk and plug the data gap in global risk exposure, contact us.

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Managing the ripple effect: a year of catastrophe

Managing the ripple effect: a year of catastrophe 1920 1080 adapt ready

As 2023 drew to an end, we closed the book on a year characterised by global turbulence and disruption. 2023 currently holds the unhappy accolade of being the most expensive year on record for climate change and weather-related disasters, exceeding the previous record set in 2020. Overall global economic losses for natural catastrophes total $110bn, and insured losses were estimated at $43bn at the halfway point of the year, with estimates from Munich Re suggesting these could have topped $300bn.

Major events this year have included a devastating earthquake in Turkey and Syria, the ongoing Russia / Ukraine war and fresh conflict in Israel and Palestine, Hurricanes Otis and Idalia, Storm Daniel and Typhoon Doksuri. These events have caused significant and lasting economic repercussions beyond borders.

It would be tempting to think that the fallout of man-made events and natural catastrophes only impacts those businesses and individuals in their immediate vicinity, but in reality, our increasingly interconnected world makes it inevitable that if an earthquake strikes in one country, its aftershocks will reverberate around the world.

We recently launched our annual Event & Disaster Report, which highlights how the interconnected nature of our world is creating a ‘new normal’ for the mitigation and management of global supply chain and energy risks.

The report details the far-reaching consequences of some of the costliest disasters that hit the world in 2023 and gives us insight into the true economic cost of these events.

Russian invasion of Ukraine ($151.2bn)

The conflict, which has been ongoing since the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 has cost $151.2bn as of November 2023 and directly impacted 1,045 companies in the region. Tellingly, we also believe 1,468 companies across continental Europe have been indirectly impacted by the conflict.

Supply chains around the world have been significantly impacted by this war, particularly those relating to palladium and semiconductor-grade nickel, critical resources for the automotive and electronics industries.

Over a third of the world’s palladium comes from Russia, the conflict has caused prices to soar, and stoppages and delays in the supply of the metal to major manufacturers such as Toyota, General Motors and Volkswagen. Russia is also the second-biggest supplier of semiconductor-grade nickel and disruption forced Apple, Samsung and Sony to reduce production of electronic devices.

Hurricane Idalia ($10bn)

When Hurricane Idalia ripped through parts of the Southeastern United States in August, it had an enormous impact on the energy sector.  Chevron, the third-largest producer of oil in the US Gulf withdrew staff from three of its platforms in the area, the resulting disruption in crude oil supply affected ExxonMobil, Shell, BP, Valero and Marathon Petroleum.

Turkey and Syria earthquake ($163.6bn)

The 7.8Mw earthquake that struck Turkey and Syria in February was the deadliest in the country’s history claiming over 50,000 lives. The devastating event cost $163.6bn and destroyed a significant proportion of the country’s infrastructure including 446 bridges, 1,275km of railway lines, the Iskenderun Port, a hub for transit automobile trade was forced to close for three months leading to significant losses for automotive companies.            

Canadian Wildfire – Northwest territories ($770mn)

Canada has experienced an unprecedented year for wildfires, with one fire historian likening the widespread event to the ice age, but instead of a creeping drop in temperature, Canadians are living through what he calls the “pyrocene”. 

The country experienced a significant drop in oil and gas output as the flames forced the sutdown of several gas production plants.  This has led to an increase in prices from $1.96 to $2.54/MMBtu, the impact of which has been felt predominantly across North America.

Typhoon Doksuri ($15.7bn)

Typhoon Doksuri, which swept across the Philippines, Taiwan, China and Vietnam in the Summer is likely to have continuing repercussions around the world.  The region is a major producer of semiconductors which are used in most electronic devices, companies likely to have been impacted by this event include Huawei and the Alibaba Group.

This is a just a very small sample of the vast and connected effects of the events of 2023 on the global supply chain and energy sectors but serves as a reminder to risk managers and underwriters that they need to be in the loop on all major events and be aware of the potential consequences for their own businesses.

Our stats highlight the massive ripple effects of these events, it’s clear that natural catastrophes and man-made disasters on this scale should be a concern for risk managers wherever they’re located. They need to have the data and tools to anticipate, monitor and mitigate these effects in order to grow and remain resilient. We can provide those tools.  Adapt Ready’s highly sophisticated risk intelligence platform aggregates trillions of data points from open and closed sources using our own proprietary correlation engine. The deep global insights we can provide allow underwriters, brokers and risk managers to answer complex questions about the global supply chain, optimise risk selection and pricing and solve accumulation and reinsurance issues in their portfolios.

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Greater interconnectivity leading to a ‘new normal’ for global energy and supply chain risk

Greater interconnectivity leading to a ‘new normal’ for global energy and supply chain risk 150 150 adapt ready

Adapt Ready’s annual Event & Disaster report reveals the impact of man-made and natural catastrophes in 2023

19 December 2023 – Adapt Ready, the risk intelligence platform provider, has published a major new report analysing the impact of key man-made and natural catastrophes on businesses within the global supply chain and energy sectors in 2023. The report reveals that increased global connectivity is leading to wider and greater impact on risk and warns that insurers and risk managers should be prepared for this ‘new normal’.

The ‘Annual Event & Disaster Report’ gives an economic overview of all major global events in 2023 and their impact on these sectors, as well as in-depth case studies demonstrating the ripple effects of the ongoing Russia/Ukraine conflict, and four of the costliest natural catastrophes of this year; Hurricane Idalia, Canadian wildfires, Typhoon Doksuri, and the earthquake affecting Turkey and Syria.

The report reveals that the automotive, construction, energy and chemical sectors were hit hardest in 2023, but none more so than the infrastructure sector, which saw economic losses of over $151B USD. The majority of infrastructure losses were recorded in Ukraine, which saw over 27,000 km of roads damaged.

The risks presented by increasing global interconnectivity are laid bare in the report, one example being the production of rare metal palladium and semiconductor-grade nickel, both of which are essential for global electronics industries. Russia is the world’s largest producer of palladium and the second largest of semiconductor-grade nickel. The disruption in the supply of these two metals had already impacted the production of General Motors, Toyota and the Volkswagen group and this continued in 2023. It also had potential impact on the production of goods from Apple, Samsung and Sony. 

The five disaster events all impacted local energy industries to some extent, the report details. The Turkey and Syria earthquake for example significantly impacted the region’s energy industry. The 7.8 magnitude quake destroyed two sections of gas transmission lines, whilst other infrastructure damage caused the shutdown of the Ceyham oil terminal in southern Turkey, which in turn affected crude oil exports from Iraq and Azerbaijan.

Adapt Ready CEO and Co-Founder Shruthi Rao said: “Our report clearly shows that greater global connectivity is leading to further reaching and more complex supply chains. In turn, this is leading to increased complexity when it comes to understanding and managing the potential risks they are exposed to. In an era of heightened geo-political uncertainty and evolving natural catastrophe risk due to climate change, insurers, brokers and corporate risk managers are facing a challenge to oversee and navigate this.”

“Adapt Ready is focused on not only providing deeper insight into global supply chain and energy sector risk but also helping corporate risk managers and their broker/insurer partners take steps to manage and mitigate this increasingly complex challenge.”

Notes to Editors:

Adapt Ready’s Event and Disaster Report 2023 can be found at

Event and Disaster Report 2023

About Adapt Ready

Adapt Ready offers a ground-breaking risk intelligence platform that delivers data insights and fills in key gaps with external data, enabling clients to better manage operational and financial risks. The platform transforms trillions of external data points into risk intelligence.

For more information please visit https://adaptready.com/

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Hurricane Ian: Impact Report

Hurricane Ian: Impact Report 150 150 adapt ready

As Hurricane Ian finishes raking over central Florida after making landfall near Fort Myers, FL, a hairsbreadth away from Category 5 status, we can start to assess the impact this devastating storm will have on global supply chains.

It is consistently surprising, even for us at Adapt Ready, how interconnected companies are and when a disaster strikes a densely packed zone of development like the central Florida coast, the effects are felt as far away as the Middle East, China, Australia, South Africa and Europe.

Hurricane Ian Report

Our platform has tracked nearly 35,000 facilities in the current estimated impact zone with the most affected companies being concentrated in aerospace (Lockheed Martin, Blue Origin Rocket Factory) and manufacturing (Safran, Volvo) and, surprisingly, mining.

From this second map, we can see that phosphate mining is quite intensive in the region right in the path Hurricane Ian took after landfall (the colored areas in the middle present the largest concentration of phosphate mines in America and second only to Morocco in the world).

Florida represents about 25% of the global supply of phosphate and though these mines are unlikely to experience substantial and prolonged disruption, there is a real concern with the possible pollution that emanates from these mines during a storm (see article).

Normally it’s likely there are large stockpiles of primary commodities like phosphate and short-term price disruptions are mitigated by hedging instruments for commodity buyers.  However, this remains another example of how information about supply chain concentrations and bottlenecks can improve risk management in the face of natural disasters.

It is also important to recognize that supply chain disruptions don’t only impact the primary inputs. Note the bottom of our infographic which lists several suppliers impacted by their customers’ disruptions: Michelin Tires impacted by Volvo and Mercedes manufacturing plants and in the forthcoming South Carolina landfall, Dow Chemical by disruption to Mahle Behr in Charleston which specializes in auto cooling and air conditioning components.

In addition to all the above, Tampa has the largest port in Florida and disruptions to its operations could exacerbate direct damage to the sectors noted above and cause further congestion to other transportation facilities as goods are redirected.

Even though the phosphate industry may not suffer tremendously from damage by hurricanes, the fact of extreme specialization and concentration in certain supply chains could have long lasting impacts in other sectors.

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Adapt Ready Wins Zurich Innovation Championship

Adapt Ready Wins Zurich Innovation Championship 600 600 adapt ready

Adapt Ready on the Cutting Edge of Risk Intelligence for Commercial Insurance

New York, May 3, 2022 — Adapt Ready announced today that the company won the coveted Zurich Innovation Championship. Zurich Insurance Group Ltd specifically cited Adapt Ready’s award-winning risk intelligence platform that provides insurers 360° risk insights in naming the technology company a winner in its 2022 Insurance Innovation Championship.

“We’re thrilled to be chosen out of thousands of contenders for this partnership. The accelerator will take our existing relationship with Zurich to the next level,” said Adapt Ready CEO Shruthi Rao. “This recognition comes at an opportune time as we enter a growth stage funding round. Be it a pandemic or climate change, it is crucial to address supply chain impacts; we look forward to working with Zurich on solving some of the biggest challenges for the industry.”

“The lack of data with context is the biggest hurdle in understanding supply chain risk,” says Adapt Ready CTO Sandeep Chandur. “Adapt Ready uses proprietary technology and comprehensive data about the global supply chain to identify companies and assets at the most significant risk from business interruption.”

“This is especially true when planning for climate change,” says Adapt Ready Advisor Chris Walker. “Modeling for the climate is only as good as the data underneath. Adapt Ready’s platform fills a huge knowledge gap in understanding the complexity to help with climate adaptation and measuring climate risks.”

“Investors who understand the real backbone of our technological advantages are aware that our intellectual property strategy, coupled with the complexity of the problems, creates solid entry barriers,” says Rao. “Similarly, insurers ready to adopt the latest tech can address these challenges and help close the coverage gap for Contingent Business Interruption by unlocking $63 billion in opportunities. Adapt Ready will equip them with best-in-class tools and insights.”

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US-based Adapt Ready’s ground-breaking risk intelligence software platform is designed for commercial insurers, brokers, and corporate clients. Our patent-pending technology optimizes external data and delivers insights that enable our clients to manage risk better and enhance their growth and profitability.

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Zurich partners with Adapt Ready

Zurich partners with Adapt Ready 600 600 adapt ready

Zurich Insurance Group (Zurich) has selected 12 startups to collaborate on novel ways to serve customers, create more frequent meaningful touchpoints with them, and challenge the boundaries of insurance.

Click here to read more on the article.

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Living with increasing US nat cat exposure

Living with increasing US nat cat exposure 600 600 adapt ready

Climate change is having a major impact on natural catastrophes in North America, in terms of location, severity and frequency. Losses are growing and modelling is becoming increasingly important, finds Tony Dowding.

Click here to read more of this article.

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Should insurers lead the climate march?

Should insurers lead the climate march? 600 600 adapt ready

If the politicians won’t go to battle against climate change, maybe insurers have the power to drive behavioural change

Click here to read more of this article.

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Hurricane Ida devastation continues

Hurricane Ida devastation continues 600 600 adapt ready

Deadly flash floods have left a trail of further devastation, with energy and chemical sectors among those exposed to supply chain disruption

Click here to read more of this article.

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Hurricane Ida Slams Into the Energy Sector

Hurricane Ida Slams Into the Energy Sector 600 532 adapt ready

When Hurricane Ida became the fifth strongest hurricane ever to hit mainland US on the 16th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina (with windspeeds reaching 150mph), it struck the energy sector first as always.

The effects were initially obvious with power outages across the entire city of New Orleans as the city’s power supplier, Entergy reported a city-wide loss of power to over 1 million people.

The potential issues only begin at the initial damage caused by the storm to the sector. Business Interruption is already becoming a factor and then the supply chain impacts will be felt as the storm subsides.

You can see from the infographic showing the impact of the storm as of today that 1,610 active offshore oil & gas wells were in the direct path and 549 offshore platforms, with Cox Operating LLC owning/operating 23% of these platforms and 28% of the wells!

Most affected companies:

  • Offshore Assets:
    • Cox Operating LLC: 125 active platforms and 451 active wells exposed to heavy winds
  • Onshore Assets:
    • Hilcorp Energy Company operating a quarter of all onshore wells that are in high-impact zone
  • Offshore & Onshore Assets Combination:
    • Whitney Oil & Gas LLC

As always, the age of the facilities is incredibly important because it was Hurricane Katrina itself in 2005 which altered the design of platforms — requiring increased height to protect them from major storm swells.

In this regard too, Cox Operating LLC leads the pack with 77 of its active platforms that were of fixed type, having been built before 2006 (pre-Katrina) and thus stand lower than the required height of 97 ft, in the path of peak wind speed.

In terms of refineries, we anticipate significant reduction in production capacities, both due to damages/electricity outages and the preemptive closures:

  • ~428 MMcfd natural gas refining capacity potentially at risk
  • 5M barrels petroleum refining capacity at risk
  • Dow Chemicals, Shell Chemicals, ExxonMobil are some of the well-known companies that will have significant reductions in their daily production capacities

The impact to these facilities is going to be felt long into the year, specifically by the immediate consuming industries such as chemical, plastics & rubber. More on this is available in our BI/CBI impacts infographic.

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