On Monday, the US Energy Department said that a site of the country’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) was considerably damaged by Hurricane Laura.
The West Hackberry site in Louisiana was closed ahead of the landfall last week and is said to be without access to commercial power. However, the sealed underground caverns saw no geology threat, contamination, or concern for spills.
The site has a storage capacity of 220 million barrels of crude and at the moment, it holds almost 650 million barrels, mostly of sour crude.
The other site closed last week is Big Hill, Texas and now it is already up and fully operational. It has made a previously scheduled delivery of oil over the weekend.
The Energy Department stated that the other SPR sites Big Hill, Bryan Mound, and Bayou Choctaw are ready to support any emergency exchange requests from refineries due to Laura. Those sites, however, have not yet received such a request due to the weak market.
