On Tuesday, August 29, over 26 inches of rain fell in Port Arthur,
Texas. The 50,000 residents of that city, north and east of Houston, are
suffering severe flooding and personal loss. Port Arthur is also the
home of the largest refinery in the United States, Motiva, which has been shut down due to massive flooding. In addition, the nearby Valero Energy VLO -0.45% and ExxonMobil XOM +0.30% refineries were shut and the Colonial Pipeline (distributing refined products across the Southeast and north to Tennessee) has been disrupted. About 22% of U.S. refining capacity
is offline due to the natural disaster. All told, it now appears that
the impact Harvey will have on the energy industry is worse than
expected and could very well, in a worst case scenario, lead to a
serious macro-economic problem.
Read mor: Hurricane Harvey Energy Crisis Could Be Nightmare For U.S. Economy
Read mor: Hurricane Harvey Energy Crisis Could Be Nightmare For U.S. Economy
