Some activists like to remind us of the January 29, 1969 oil well blowout six miles off the California coast near Santa Barbara. Unquestionable, it was an environmental nightmare and something we never want to see happen again. From that disaster, oil producers, the ones who supply our cars, homes, hospitals, schools and transportation network with energy learned many valuable lessons.
Yesterday, Red Cavaney, president of the American Petroleum Institute (API) released an assessment of the impacts of Hurricanes Gustav and Ike which pounded the Gulf Coast. As with Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, there were no industry lives lost, no blowouts like 1969 and no oil spills even though those massive storms shut down 25% of our nation's oil supply and 15% of our natural gas. The areas impacted by both 2008 hurricanes houses 46% of U.S. refining capacity which is slowly coming back on line.
API credits the industry with an advanced emergency preparedness program including sophisticated redundant communions systems, continuous emergency response updates and drills, and, prearranging supplies to respond quickly to disasters.
In the next weeks, Cavaney requests, we will need to conserve our use of oil and gas, hopefully, there will be no shortages or significant gasoline, natural gas or oil price spikes. Conserving and using petroleum products is a wise idea in the long run.
Finally, as this is being posted, the price of barrel of crude was trading for $98, down from the record $147 a few months ago.
Don C. Brunell, President (DonB@awb.org)
