CATEGORY 5 CYCLONE AIMED AT STRAIT OF HORMUZ
June 5th, 2007Could get interesting. Stay up to the minute with The Oil Drum.
Via: STRATFOR:
A Category 5 cyclone with winds of up to 195 mph is heading toward one of the world’s most productive energy basins, threatening local devastation and global disruption at a point at which oil prices are already flirting with record highs. For once, the region in question is not the Gulf of Mexico. There is cause for concern; Cyclone Gonu is headed directly for the Strait of Hormuz.
The cyclone is rotating counterclockwise — as it would in the Gulf of Mexico — meaning that, should it enter the Persian Gulf, the gulf’s west coast would suffer the most serious damage. Along the west coast, low-lying areas are the norm, and there are few barrier islands like the ones that line the Gulf of Mexico to absorb much of the storm surge that could therefore penetrate miles inland.
Like all weather phenomena, hurricanes and cyclones are notoriously fickle, so there is (thankfully) no guarantee Gonu will enter the Persian Gulf, much less wreck it. But there are two facilities that bear specific mention: the Ras Tanura and Ras al-Juaymah oil loading platforms in Saudi Arabia. So far, the chances of either of these facilities suffering a direct hit are very slim — Gonu is still 750 miles away from those export points — but they collectively pump nearly 10 million barrels per day (bpd) of crude. These facilities, while critical to global energy supplies and — due to their size — largely immune to terrorist attacks, are not particularly hurricane resistant. After all, they were built in an area where such storms are almost unheard of. Other (hardly insignificant) energy installations dot the region in Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates — most of them on the west coast. Luckily, there is little offshore production in the Persian Gulf — unlike in the Gulf of Mexico — so there is unlikely to be much permanent damage to the oil production facilities themselves.
More likely is shipping disruption. Right now, Gonu is on a collision course with the Strait of Hormuz, a major chokepoint that transits some 17 million bpd of crude. Within the next few hours, the tankers and supertankers — not to mention the massive container ships that often visit regional hubs in the United Arab Emirates — that ply that route will be scurrying out of the storm’s way. In the Gulf of Mexico, such storm-dodging is an annual ritual that is no major concern, but in the world’s “Cradle of Oil,” this is a completely new sport, and even a short disruption with minimal damage is sure to send the price of a barrel of crude sharply upward.
Currently the “best guess” indicates Gonu will slowly lose force to be “only” Category 3 when it makes initial landfall in Oman, forecast for June 5 at 6 p.m. local time.
Two words sprang fully formed into my mind as I read the title of this thread: ionospheric heating.
Deflected? Accelerated? Steered?
We’re approaching one of those “tell” moments, as in poker. Are we about to witness another episode of the Big Easy?
Just the ships “scurrying” to avoid the storm will bump the barrel price. Even a Category III storm will make a mess — for all the reasons they listed. Category IV will hose things badly. Category V is the unthinkable. Goldman Sachs 100+ per barrel price prediction some time back that made everybody cringe? Say hello to reality.
Which brings us back to those two words, and the land of tinfoil antennae.
Will take the punch out of it and try and keep the apple cart upright awhile? Or pump it up, give the recalcitrant Saudis a pop in the jaw to keep them and the petrodollar in line, up the Naval/Marine presence and bring in the “reconstruction” team: Halliburton and friends. Not to mention reward the oil majors with profits even higher than the windfall of recent times.
Hmmm…
It’ll be interesting to see what if any affect this storm will have on those three warships Bush and Gates have sent into the Hormuz to threaten Iran…and it’ll be even more interesting to hear what Ahmadinejad will say about it!
I’ve been thinking about this storm all day, and cannot believe (but am pleased to see) Doug and Snorky writing along the lines of my thoughts. After looking at the Oil Drum story and at the maps and the probabilities of such a storm, I immediately thought of Scott Stevens website on Weather Wars. Unfortunately, the link to the archives on his site are not on this computer, and alot of his links have been cut. Best I could find was
http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread166501/pg1
I know its pretty far out there on my part to imagine that IF the weather could be controlled; and IF the controllee sure doesn’t LIKE what Big Dick is doing with Iran, this weather message is kind of sweet. Sheesh, exactly what does an aircraft carrier do during a cyclone? Get sucked up into a cloud like the house in the Wizard of OZ? Looks like we’ve got two there. I say, weird thoughts or not, this is a very nice way to imagine the end of the threat of war with Iran. I haven’t figured out how to make the story end well for the sea-people on those carriers, but maybe they will meet a better fate than the one that awaits them if they start to bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran.