Growing exports add to annual hurricane risks for US energy sector

摘要

As the US becomes a larger oil and gas exporter, the annual threat fromthe Atlantic hurricane season poses greater risks for global flows, ontop of the usual risks to electricity demand and domestic fuel supplies.The US exports more than three times as much crude oil and LNGas it did when Hurricane Harvey hit the Houston area in August 2017.The storm did massive damage across the energy and shippingsectors, roiling markets for weeks."Another Hurricane Harvey-type event would cause big problemsfor exporters if the port infrastructure was closed down," said SandyFielden, director of oil and products research for MorningstarCommodity Research. "Of course the impact of a hurricane varies withits intensity and direction, but could obviously be significant."Port closures could ripple across the new oil export infrastructure- canceling vessel loadings, filling storage terminals and backing uppipelines.