Storm Alert – Tropical Storm Nate – Orange Alert

Tropical Storm Nate is making his way quickly north, traveling at roughly 10 mph. Nate will travel over the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico later tonight, then strengthen back at sea until reaching the Gulf Coast. Given the storm’s speed, it is not expected to have sufficient time to strengthen, and forecasts continue to show a Category 1 storm hitting in Louisiana on Saturday night or Sunday morning. Louisiana has declared a state of emergency in advance of the storm.

The below map from the EIA overlays Nate’s path with critical energy infrastructure. Numerous oil rigs operate in the Gulf of Mexico and will be affected by the storm, although currently no long-term outages are expected. The brown squares represent refineries. The storms path currently looks to move well east of major refining capacity in Texas and Louisiana, which bodes well for consumers. So far, suppliers do not expect Nate to substantially impact supply, including barge shipments to Florida.

Markets have fallen lower during today’s trade, with crude giving up nearly 3%. Markets had bid up oil markets expecting an interruption similar to Harvey, but as forecasts have improved, it appears this storm will not have a major impact, at least on oil markets.

Overall, roughly 15% of crude production in the Gulf remains offline until Nate passes. The Gulf represents about 20% (1.76 million barrels per day) of all U.S. production, meaning Nate has taken around 3% of U.S. crude production offline temporarily.

Mansfield remains on Code Orange for Louisiana (New Orleans), Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, and Florida. The move to Code Orange signifies that operations teams will be preparing for storm conditions in the coming days. After the rapid intensification of other storms this season, Mansfield is taking caution to make sure customers remain supplied.

If you have questions or would like to order fuel ahead of the storm, please contact your Mansfield sales representative or customer relationship manager.