The Refinery Side of the Equation

From the FT:

Assessing the impact of the storm that closed refineries in the US's most important oil producing region, Europe's second largest oil group said it expected production in the region to reach only 60 per cent of the pre-hurricane levels by the end of the year.

It added that refineries at some sites including Mars, one of the gulf's largest deep water platforms capable of producing 220,000 barrels a day, were unlikely to resume activities this year.

The region, which produced an average 450,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day or about 15 per cent of group production in the first half of the year, is now only producing 160,00 boe/d following the damage caused by the storms.

This is the flipside of the story from last night.

Update: I may have confused some details and I kind of wonder if the author of the story did as well. Despite all the references to refineries and refining capacity near the top, the story closes with this:

In addition, Shell said a third of its refining capacity in the US had been knocked out by Hurricane Katrina. Before the storm Shell refined a million barrels of oil a day at its seven refineries in the US. Two of these sites - Motiva Convent and Motiva Norco had been affected but were expected to return to pre-hurricane levels by the middle of next week.

At this point I am guessing this last section is the only portion dealing with refining and that the deep water platform, Mars, is mistakenly referred to as a refinery.