Note: The term "shut-in" means "shut down - not operating".

According to The Oil Drum:

"Hurricane Ike's current track predicts landfall between Corpus Christi and Galveston, but has been moving northwards. Within the current National Hurricane Center predicted storm path lies about 5 million bpd of US petroleum refining capacity. (Perspective: 5 MMBBL is about 30% of US capacity (about 15 MMBBL), and a bit less than 6% of [total] global capacity (~85 MMBBL). Also, the MMS [U.S. Gov't Minerals Management Service] reported Wednesday that staff has been evacuated from 452 production platforms (63.0%) and 81 rigs (66.9%) –- (95.9%) of the oil production and 73.1% of the natural gas production has been shut-in as a precautionary measure for Hurricane Ike.)"

According to Kinetic Analysis Corporation's (KAC - a respected source) special excerpts from their commercially available comprehensive real time geophysical hazard impact assessments:

"Current track would take out long term 5-10% of Gulf Of Mexico production, but that's not the problem. If the GFDL scenario (model) plays out at a Cat 3 or higher, we are looking at having 20% of US refining capacity (5% of global capacity) offline for a month or more. Production side damage [rigs and wells] becomes irrelevant at that point."

Here's an interesting website for tracking the storm.

We should be relatively safe in Oregon, from resulting shortages, as our petroleum comes from Alaska and other points on the West Coast. But an enormous quantity of the refined product supplied East of the Rockies comes from Texas and Louisiana. If Hurricane Ike tracks across Galveston and Houston as currently predicted, we're in for a big "2x4 to the head" incident across this country. Shortages across the country could affect prices in Oregon.

Peter