insights

When Hurricane Ida became the fifth strongest hurricane ever to hit mainland US on the 16^th 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.

Press Release

For Immediate Release

New York, NY, USA. 31st August 2021.

On the 16^th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina causing devastation to the state of New Orleans, Hurricane Ida made landfall. With windspeeds reaching 150mph the Cat 4 storm slammed into Louisiana as the fifth strongest hurricane ever to hit mainland U.S, reversing the flow of the Mississippi river and taking the roof off a hospital in the process.

When Katrina made landfall sixteen years ago on the 29^th of August 2005 it was Cat 3 storm and caused massive disruption along the coast of Louisiana, one of the US’s most important industrial corridors, and highlighted the areas vulnerability to flooding. Ida, making landfall just 45 miles west of Katrina’s entry point, has only emphasized this further causing power outages for the entire city of New Orleans as confirmed by Entergy, the city’s power supplier. On top of this, storm surges reaching up to 12 feet (3.65 m) have been reported in the region causing damage and disruption to the energy sector.

Using Adapt Ready’s risk intelligence platform the impacts to business and industry can be seen already as well as the potential costly supply chain and business interruption issues yet to come.

Hurricane Ida has now been downgraded to a tropical storm, but the issues are only just beginning with initial predictions showing the most affected industries currently to be:

• Chemicals
• Energy (Offshore & Onshore)
• Metal Products

Major companies like Westlake Chemicals and Occidental Petrochemicals have been shut down, and these are companies that were already battered by multiple challenges in the past year: declaration of force majeures on their key products like PVC after last year’s record-breaking hurricanes, and Occidental’s Texas facility declaring force majeure earlier this year during Texas’ severe winter storm. Shell’s chemical and refining operations at Narco, Louisiana were shut down during the winter storm and these facilities are again in Ida’s path.

The chemical sector is set to experience some of the biggest impacts to its supply chains, especially the Plastics & Rubber industry that relies on chemicals from the impacted regions, like polymeric MDI (for foams), polyethylene (for packaging materials), butadiene (for tires), PVC and chlorine.

Business interruption and supply chain issues are expected to follow after the initial damage caused by Ida. Our predictions show that in addition to Energy and Chemicals industries, we also foresee impact to the Plastics & Rubber industries, because of the sheer length of time it takes for refineries to get back to full production capacity. More details are available on our infographic below.

If you would like more information as to your specific portfolio requirements in the affected area or just want to be kept up to date with real time hurricane impacts this season, then please contact riskmonitor@adaptready.com.

About Adapt Ready:

Adapt Ready’s ground-breaking risk intelligence platform delivers new data insights and fills in key gaps with external data, enabling our customers to better manage operational and financial risks, and to enhance their growth and profitability. With our platform, organizations can gain insights from external data tailored to specific situations before, during and after a crisis:

• Before: Plan for risks by uncovering as many hidden risks as possible
• During: Mitigate the impact – as events unfold, new data emerges and can inform decisions to reduce the event’s impact
• After: Adapt to new conditions and refine future business direction