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Thursday, August 27, 2020

All's well that ends well if you own a well

There were some 1400 oil wells in the path of Hurricane Laura's storm surge.  Plus multiple chemical pipelines. Plus the offshore rigs, plus the LNG terminals. What happens if all that stuff gets blowed up?  Well, there is precedent.

Hurricane Katrina struck a similar trove of coastal oil and gas infrastructure in 2005. A Category 3 storm, Katrina made landfall with less force than Laura but managed to damage an estimated 100 drilling platforms, 400 pipelines and caused about 540 spills in Louisiana waters. Added up, the spills likely released roughly 11 million gallons – the same amount as the 1989 Exxon Valdez disaster in Alaska.

Fifteen years later, no environmental damage assessments have been completed and no companies were fined.

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