Total lost crude production due to Katrina seen at 55-mil bbl:IEA

London (Platts)--9Sep2005

The International Energy Agency said Friday it expects the impact of
Hurricane Katrina on US Gulf crude production to be felt into early 2006, with
a total 55-mil bbl of lost crude and 15-mil bbl of lost NGL output.
     In its latest monthly report, the Paris-based agency said, due to
Katrina's upstream impact, which is on par with that of Hurricane Ivan in
2004, it cut its estimate for non-OPEC oil supply in 2005 by 165,000 b/d to
50.6-mil b/d.

      "It is too early to be definitive about the likely pace and extent of
supply recovery, but preliminary recovery profiles and experience from last
year's Hurricane Ivan, suggest potentially similar aggregate losses from
Katrina of 55-mil bbl of crude plus 15-mil bbl of NGL running through
early-2006," the IEA said.

      Total US supply for 2005 has been revised down by 155,000 b/d to
7.62-mil b/d in 2005 and by 50,000 b/d to 7.70-mil b/d in 2006, due to the
knock-on effects of Katrina, and its impact on assumed seasonal storm outages
for subsequent years.

      The IEA said, while a definitive assessment is not yet possible,
recovery profiles suggest a potential loss of 38-mil bbl of products in
September.

      Some 37 shallow water platforms were destroyed and four large deepwater
platforms (including Shell?s Mars facility) have suffered extensive damage by
Katrina which initially shut down the US's Gulf entire 1.4-mil b/d output.
      Some 861,000 b/d of US Gulf production remained shut in as of Sep 7, the
IEA said, all which could be restarted by early December, except 11% of which
is affected by serious damage.

      "Losses of sweet crude supply could be relatively more keenly felt early
in the recovery period. However, if extensive damage to the Mars platform is
confirmed and it stays out of action longer, heavy sour grades will also be in
tight supply in the longer term," the IEA said. 

      After storm-related shut-ins amounting to 190,000 b/d in both July and
August, lost crude supply in its scenario is 780,000 b/d for September,
405,000 b/d in October, 225,000 b/d in November, and 165,000 b/d in December,
the IEA said.

      "This is a more conservative assumption on recovery than used by some
government agencies but is employed in part due to the lack of information on
pipeline status and also due to the slow rate of recovery in recent days," the
report said.

     The report said Katrina related crude outages will continue into January
2006 (40,000 b/d) and February (10,000 kb/d).

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