Humberto shuts 3 refineries, oil jumps
HOUSTON (Reuters) - Hurricane Humberto shut three U.S. refineries in Texas on Thursday, sending oil prices to a record high on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
NYMEX crude oil futures climbed as much as 29 cents to a record $80.20 per barrel Thursday morning on a jump in Gulf Coast gasoline wholesale prices.
All three refineries are in Port Arthur, Texas, which Humberto raked with 80 mph (130 kph) winds early on Thursday morning before crossing into Louisiana.
Valero Energy Corp filed notice with state pollution regulators on Thursday afternoon that it plans to begin restarting its 325,000 barrel per day (bpd) Port Arthur refinery on Thursday night and finish the restart by Sunday night.
"We are going to take our time," said Valero spokesman Bill Day. "We want to do this safely and carefully."
Total Petrochemicals USA was planning to begin a full plant restart as soon as electrical power from supplier Entergy Texas was restored at its 232,000 bpd refinery in Port Arthur.
The refinery has partial power from a cogeneration plant and most process units are on warm standby, meaning they only need to receive feedstock to resume production, said spokesman Rick Hagar. There was no word from Entergy on when the power would be back on.
Shell Oil Co. said all units at its joint-venture Motiva Enterprises 285,000 bpd refinery in Port Arthur were shut early on Thursday. The company has not issued planned restart times.
Ships resumed moving along the Houston Ship Channel on Thursday morning after the waterway to the busiest U.S. petrochemical port was shut on Wednesday, the U.S. Coast Guard said.
Ship traffic also resumed on the Sabine-Neches Waterway to refineries in Port Arthur and Beaumont, Texas, on Thursday afternoon.
Both ship channels were shut when seas became too rough to safely navigate.
Exxon Mobil Corp said the hurricane had only a minor impact on its 349,000 bpd Beaumont, Texas, refinery north of Port Arthur and the refinery remained "up and running."
Refineries in Houston and Texas City, Texas, and Lake Charles and Baton Rouge, Louisiana, were unaffected by the pop-up Hurricane Humberto that went from a loosely organized mass of thunderstorms over the Gulf on Wednesday morning to a Category 1 hurricane in 24 hours.
Operations at the Louisiana Offshore Oil Port were normal on Thursday as the storm was far to the west of its offshore unloading platform, said a spokeswoman.
The sudden appearance of the storm on Wednesday close to the Texas coast meant the storm did not affect offshore oil and natural gas production, which provides one-third of U.S. supply.
Humberto claimed one life in the east Texas town of Bridge City, northeast of Port Arthur, and knocked out power to 100,000 customers of Entergy Texas.
