Hurricanes and Energy Infrastructure in the Gulf of Mexico: Impacts and Challenges

摘要: Recent Hurricanes Katrina and Rita created considerable damage to a wide range of energy infrastructure along the Gulf of Mexico. The storms were unique in that the combined storms:(a) impacted a much broader region of the Gulf coast than any other previous combination of storms; and (b) did considerably more damage to a wide range of energy infrastructure that was not limited to traditional exploration and production activities alone. This paper reviews the challenges associated with each storm and highlights the wide range of energy infrastructure that was impacted. This includes a survey of offshore production damage, refinery damage, petrochemical industry damage, pipeline damage, gas processing damage, and power generation and transmission damage. A second theme of the paper is to highlight the interrelated nature of energy infrastructure along the Gulf and to show how outages in one …