Oil refineries are shutting down in the wake of rainfall and flooding from Hurricane Harvey.
The damage could mean a loss of more than 1 million barrels per day in refining capacity just in the Houston and Galveston areas — that’s not including hundreds of thousands of more barrels in the Corpus Christi area.
Shell has shut down its massive Deer Park refinery in southeastern Houston, among the largest in the United States with a crude oil capacity of 340,000 barrrels per day.
The company said in a statement obtained by CNBC, “On Sunday, August 27, 2017, we made the decision to initiate a controlled shut down of the Deer Park refinery and chemical plant as a result of heavy rainfall and associated nearby flooding from Hurricane Harvey. Only essential personnel will stay on site through the end of the week.”
Also on Sunday, Petrobras said it would shut down its Pasadena refinery, with a capacity of 110,000 barrels per day, thanks to “severe weather,” according to Dow Jones.
Exxon Mobil has also shut down its massive plant in Baytown, Texas, on the Houston Ship Channel, with a capacity of more than 560,000 barrels per day, CNBC has confirmed. The Ship Channel is the busiest in America and remains closed from the storm.
Traders and oil industry news services also say that the Phillips 66 Sweeny Texas Refinery (260,000 b/d) is shutting down, and that output at Marathon’s Galveston Bay refinery (460,000 b/d) and the Access Industries plant in Houston (260,000 b/d) are slowed because of the closed ship channel.
Magellen pipeline company has announced that it’s shutting down its crude oil and refined product pipeline in Houston, which means remaining refineries there might be shutting down as well.
