By ANA CAMPOY
Saturday August 18, 2007; Page A2
It’s late August in the oil belt, which means thoughts are turning once again to hurricanes.
Hurricane Dean, which is expected to land near U.S. coasts in the next few days, is already roiling oil markets, pushing up prices and forcing exploration companies to start evacuating workers from the massive platforms dotting the Gulf of Mexico.
Last year, the Gulf oil complex went through the hurricane season largely untouched. But industry officials and investors are still wary of a repeat of 2004 and 2005, when three nasty storms did millions of dollars of damage to offshore platforms, underwater pipelines and onshore refineries, pushing up oil and gasoline prices for months.
Forecasters already are predicting that this year is likely to be a more active hurricane season because the warm waters and calm winds prevailing in the Caribbean are more likely to spawn hurricanes. “The stage is set, and we’re just seeing the beginnings of a very active season,” said Jim Rouiller, senior energy meteorologist at Planalytics Inc., a Wayne, Pa., company that offers weather advice to the energy sector.
Enter Hurricane Dean, which is currently bearing down on the Caribbean and could strike the Gulf Coast Thursday or Friday. At this point, the storm is thought most likely to touch shore west of Houston, missing much of the oil infrastructure. But if the storm takes a more-eastward path, as did Hurricane Ivan in 2004 or hurricanes Katrina or Rita in 2005, watch out.
Over the past couple of days, Transocean Inc. has evacuated 75 people from four of its rigs and plans to evacuate 92 more from its most-westerly rig on the Gulf. Noble Corp. evacuated 175 workers from a rig ahead of tropical storm Erin earlier this past week, and plans to evacuate 650 more people from all of its rigs in the central Gulf of Mexico through the weekend. Royal Dutch Shell PLC, which expects to evacuate about 275 employees, has shut in some of its oil and gas production.
The U.S.’s Mineral Management Service said about 0.17% of the oil production in the Gulf, or 2,163 barrels of oil a day, has been “shut in,” oil lingo for idled. It also estimated the shut-in of about 0.1% of the natural-gas production, or eight million cubic feet of gas a day. That’s just a drop in the barrel, however. More than 70% of the Gulf’s oil production was idled ahead of Ivan’s landfall, pushing up oil prices world-wide. Oil markets are likely to be particularly jumpy over the next few days as meteorologists keep changing their predictions for where Hurricane Dean will make landfall.
“The price effects are really going to depend on how the forecast develops minute by minute and hour by hour,” said Michael Waldron, energy research analyst at Lehman Brothers.
Write to Ana Campoy at [email protected]
This website and sisters royaldutchshellplc.com, shellnazihistory.com, royaldutchshell.website, johndonovan.website, and shellnews.net, are owned by John Donovan. There is also a Wikipedia segment.
Royal Dutch Shell conspired directly with Hitler, financed the Nazi Party, was anti-Semitic and sold out its own Dutch Jewish employees to the Nazis. Shell had a close relationship with the Nazis during and after the reign of Sir Henri Deterding, an ardent Nazi, and the founder and decades long leader of the Royal Dutch Shell Group. His burial ceremony, which had all the trappings of a state funeral, was held at his private estate in Mecklenburg, Germany. The spectacle (photographs below) included a funeral procession led by a horse drawn funeral hearse with senior Nazis officials and senior Royal Dutch Shell directors in attendance, Nazi salutes at the graveside, swastika banners on display and wreaths and personal tributes from Adolf Hitler and Reichsmarschall, Hermann Goring. Deterding was an honored associate and supporter of Hitler and a personal friend of Goring.
Deterding was the guest of Hitler during a four day summit meeting at Berchtesgaden. Sir Henri and Hitler both had ambitions on Russian oil fields. Only an honored personal guest would be rewarded with a private four day meeting at Hitler’s mountain top retreat.
IN JULY 2007, MR BILL CAMPBELL (ABOVE, A RETIRED GROUP AUDITOR OF SHELL INTERNATIONAL SENT AN EMAIL TO EVERY UK MP AND MEMBER OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS: 
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A head-cut image of Alfred Donovan (now deceased) appears courtesy of The Wall Street Journal.
