The Peak-Oil Crisis: The Storms of August

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It has become fashionable in peak oil circles to make the comparison between the current summer and that of 1914— just before the cataclysm of World War I. That year too, was a warm and idyllic summer in which the people went happily about their business unaware the assassination of an archduke was about to destroy the old order and plunge the world into decades of turmoil.

This time, the trouble spawned in the South Atlantic , strengthened in a global-warmed Caribbean and slammed into the heart of the US oil industry. The flooding of New Orleans and the destruction of miles of the Gulf coast will rank among the greatest natural disasters America has ever known, for a number of reasons.

For the Gulf oil industry, the approach of a Category 5 Hurricane was a signal to shutdown and run for cover. The super tankers bringing up to 900,000 barrels a day to the Louisiana Offshore Oil Port (The LOOP) headed elsewhere. The 55,000 oil workers on platforms out in the Gulf shut off the pumps, plugged their wells, and boarded ships and helicopters to safety, thus halting the production of some 1.4 million barrels of oil a day — some seven percent of US daily consumption.


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