Buckle up and get ready to pay higher prices at the gas pump over the next few weeks. With Hurricane Ida cutting a deadly path through the Gulf of Mexico earlier this week and making landfall on the 16th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, the two storms can be comparable in many ways.
We’ll learn more about Hurricane Ida and the damage caused over the coming months, but we can go ahead and say without uncertainty, gas prices will increase.
When Hurricane Katrina hit oil production in the Gulf was temporarily halted and at the highest point crude oil hit $70 per barrel.
Ahead of Hurricane Ida, oil production was halted in the gulf with over 95% of oil production being stopped.
According to a report by the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement, more than 288 oil-and-gas platforms and 11 rigs were either shutdown and evacuated or moved to safer areas. All total that’s a loss in production of 1.7 million barrels of oil a day.
By comparison, when Katrina hit, we had a loss of 1.52 million barrels a day.
Macrotrends reported last Friday the cost of crude oil was already $68.74 per barrel- before the storm had hit also affecting gas and oil refineries in southern Louisiana.
It’s early to predict all the outcomes of Hurricane Ida, but if I were a betting woman, I’d say without a doubt we are going to be paying much higher prices and those numbers will keep going up.
In 2005, President George W. Bush released 30 million gallons of oil from the country’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve in order to impact prices at the pump.
Let’s hope President Biden can look at history, act fast and do the same.
With a country already trying to survive the waves of an ongoing pandemic, paying higher prices at the pump may be more than some families, businesses and organizations can handle.
