Gas Price Pain Ahead If Refiners Face Restart Struggle After Ida
- Refineries could see downtime of up to six weeks, analyst says
- Drivers in affected markets may pay 10 cents a gallon more
Motorists sit in traffic on I-10 West while evacuating ahead of Hurricane Ida in Metairie, Louisiana, on Aug. 28.
Photographer: Luke Sharrett/BloombergThis article is for subscribers only.
Some U.S. motorists who’d been expecting an end-of-summer relief for gasoline prices should start bracing for higher costs at the pump in the coming days due to Hurricane Ida.
Ida made landfall in Louisiana Sunday and is traveling along a path where seven fuel-makers process the equivalent of 12% of the oil refined nationwide. The Category 4 storm is expected to cause severe flooding and power outages that would slow the return to operations for those refineries, according to Andy Lipow, president of Lipow Oil Associates LLC in Houston.