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Microcap & Penny Stocks : 10-Bagger MINIMUM Rise from July 1, 2005 until December 31, -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: balaw who wrote (197)	8/23/2005 7:05:14 PM
From: Fiscally Conservative	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1694

Nice find! I must have missed this. Holding Strong here!

To: balaw who wrote (197)	8/28/2005 9:55:17 PM
From: SOROS	Respond to of 1694

Katrina cuts oil output by a third As storm gathers strength and heads toward land, there's plenty to fear in the oil patch. August 28, 2005: 5:27 PM EDT HOUSTON (Reuters) - U.S. energy companies said U.S. Gulf of Mexico crude oil output was cut by more than one-third on Saturday as Hurricane Katrina appeared poised to charge through central production areas toward New Orleans. The Gulf of Mexico is home to roughly a quarter of U.S. domestic oil and gas output, with a capacity to produce about 1.5 million barrels per day of crude and 12.3 billion cubic feet per day of gas. As of Saturday, 563,000 barrels daily crude output had been shut in due to the threatening storm. Shell Oil Co., which was evacuating all 1,019 of its offshore workers in the central and eastern Gulf on Saturday, had the bulk of closed Gulf daily oil production, with 420,000 barrels turned off. Shell also said 1.345 billion cubic feet per day, or Bfd, of natural gas had been shut by Saturday. Total daily Gulf natural gas output shut on Saturday was 1.9 billion cubic feet. Chalmette Refining LLC, which operates a New Orleans-area refinery, was shutting down production in preparation for the approach of the hurricane, which is predicted to produce winds near 131 mph (210 kph) when it charges ashore on Monday. Chalmette is a joint venture between Exxon Mobil Corp. and Venezuelan state oil company Petroleos de Venezuela SA and operates a 190,000-bpd refinery 9 miles east of downtown New Orleans. The shutdown was to be completed by Katrina's predicted landfall on Monday afternoon, said Chalmette spokeswoman Nora Scheller. Other southeast Louisiana refineries were operating on Saturday but were reducing staff and preparing for possible shutdowns, the companies said. Ship traffic along the Mississippi River from the Gulf of Mexico to New Orleans was halted on Saturday when ship pilots said conditions were already unsafe to continue moving vessels along the waterway. The U.S. Coast Guard was warning mariners of possible waterway closures along the Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama coasts as early as Sunday afternoon. The Louisiana Offshore Oil Port LLC stopped offloading tankers in the Gulf of Mexico at midday on Saturday. The LOOP, which is the only U.S. offshore oil port, takes an average 1 million barrels in foreign crude from tankers in the Gulf. While offloading is halted, the LOOP is supplying refiners via pipeline with crude stored on shore. Katrina was a Category 5 hurricane on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale, with catastrophic winds of 175 mph (284 kph), just before 2 p.m. EDT (1800 GMT) on Sunday, said the U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami. Its central pressure -- a measure of a storm's intensity -- fell to 906 millibars, making Katrina the second strongest storm on record after the Labor Day hurricane of 1935 that hit the Florida Keys. That storm recorded a minimum central pressure of 892 millibars on landfall. "If it stayed at this intensity, it would be one of the two or three strongest to ever hit this country," Ed Rappaport, deputy director of the hurricane center, told CNN. "And on top of that of course we have a special concern for the area -- New Orleans is below sea level." Katrina was 180 miles south-southeast of the mouth of the Mississippi River and heading northwest at 13 mph (21 kph). Hurricane force winds could be felt 105 miles out from the center. The hurricane center warned of destructive winds along the Gulf Coast from the Florida-Alabama border, through Mississippi and west to Morgan City in Louisiana, and said Katrina could bring up to 15 inches of rain. Its track would send it through key U.S. oil and gas areas in the Gulf of Mexico, and Katrina seemed likely to affect already sky-high gasoline prices. Oil rigs were evacuated. The last Category 5 to strike the area was Hurricane Camille in 1969. Camille, which registered a minimum pressure of 909 millibars at landfall, just missed New Orleans but devastated Louisiana and Alabama, killing hundreds. Hurricane Andrew, which destroyed the city of Homestead south of Miami in 1992 and ranks as the costliest natural disaster in U.S. history, was also a Category 5. Its central pressure was 922 millibars. Katrina was originally projected to take a path west across southern Florida, turn north in the eastern Gulf and strike the Florida Panhandle as a minimal hurricane. As late as Friday afternoon, many producers were taking a wait-and-see approach common with eastern Gulf storms, where oil and gas drilling and production are sparse. But the storm's long drift westward Friday afternoon and evening meant it was gaining intensity from deep, warm Gulf waters and would not turn north in time to avoid production areas. Katrina is expected to reach land sometime Monday morning, according to CNN meteorologist Brad Huffines.