Well, it looks like Gustav is heading right for New Orleans.
3 years almost to the day after Katrina it’s about 65 miles south of the city (7:30 am) moving at about 16mph with winds as high as 115mph, luckily "only" a category 3. The leading edge of the storm is just hitting the city, which has been pretty much emptied this time in a massive weekend evacuation. Pretty much all of our gulf coast oil production has been shut down (1Mbd) as is about 10% of the US refining capacity (about 2mbd), neither is likely to be a factor unless an actual refinery is damaged or if the port is damaged and shut for a prolonged period of time.
That will all depend on how well the Bush administration did in rebuilding the levee system in New Orleans which is getting hit by it’s third "Storm of the Century" in 36 months, most likely due to that global warming that Bush/McCain still say does not exist. Oil prices rose $2.54 to $118 in early trading but the storm is looking like a disasppointment for the oil bulls and oil fell back to $114.78 at about 7am.
IN PROGRESS
