(Updates power outages, port, river and fuel pipeline closings)
By Liz Hampton and Erwin Seba
HOUSTON, Aug 30 (Reuters) - Hurricane Ida pummeled U.S. Gulf
Coast energy suppliers, knocking out most of the region's
offshore wells, nearly half its motor fuel production and
closing energy-export ports.
The storm moved into Mississippi on Monday after leaving a
trail of destruction in Louisiana and rampaging through U.S.
offshore oil and gas fields. Hundreds of oil production
platforms were evacuated and more than 1.3 million homes and
businesses in Louisiana and Mississippi were without power.
Production losses - including at six Gulf Coast refineries -
will lift retail gasoline prices by 5 to 10 cents a gallon,
tracking firm GasBuddy said. Crude oil eased on Monday
after an earlier rally to a four-week high.
Colonial Pipeline, the largest U.S. fuel pipeline network,
halted motor fuel deliveries from Houston to Greensboro, North
Carolina. A spokesman on Monday did not say when it expects to
resume full operations. Its lines supply nearly half the
gasoline used along the U.S. East Coast and an extended May
shutdown led to fuel shortages.
Some 1.74 million barrels of oil output were lost to
shut-ins on Sunday, an amount greater than Mexico's daily
production. U.S. Gulf of Mexico natural gas also was cut by 94%,
or 2 billion cubic feet, a government tally found.
Six refineries that process 1.92 million barrels per day of
oil into gasoline and other petroleum products, either shut or
curtailed some production, sources familiar with the operations
and companies said. That includes two Valero Energy
plants in Louisiana that combined process 335,000 barrels per
day and Phillips 66's 255,000 bpd Alliance, Louisiana, refinery.
Oil companies on Monday are beginning damage surveys of
offshore platforms before taking crews back and restoring any
output. Royal Dutch Shell plans a flyover of its
offshore properties.
A transmission tower that provides power to eight southeast
Louisiana parishes, which are home to refinery operators,
collapsed into the Mississippi River at the height of the storm.
It could takes weeks to remove the tower, tying up traffic on
the nation's larger commercial waterway, a regional emergency
management director said.
Nearly a dozen commercial shipping ports from New Orleans to
Pascagoula, Mississippi, remained closed on Monday. The closures
included Louisiana Offshore Oil Port (LOOP), the largest
privately-owned crude export and import terminal in the United
States. Ida made a landfall near Port Fourchon, the land base
for LOOP.
(Reporting by Liz Hampton in Denver, Marianna Parraga and Erwin
Seba in Houston; writing by Gary McWilliams; editing by Richard
Pullin and Barbara Lewis)
