Many consumers were hoping that by the end of the summer, gasoline prices would level out. In the wake of Hurricane Ida, however, those prices may rise instead.
Ida hit Louisiana on August 29, and struck an area where about 12% of oil is refined in the U.S. A Category 4 storm, Ida is expecting to cause severe flooding and power outages that will slow the refining process in those areas down considerably.
Andy Lipow, president of Lipow Oil Associates LLC in Houston, says to expect four to six weeks of downtime for the refineries.
According to information gathered from previous hurricanes, a refinery is weakest in its cooling tower, which can be damaged by the wind. A downed cooling tower can take 12 days to repair. A refinery that doesn’t get damaged, however, can be back online in about a week.
In either scenario, it means that gas is going to be more expensive at the pump. We may be looking at an increase of about a dime in Southeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions.
The average gas prices for the week of Aug. 23 were $2.803 a gallon in the U.S Gulf Coast, according to the U.S Energy Information Administration.
Source: ttnews.com
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