By Mark Rossano

Hurricane Ida issues are still causing problems in the U.S. with 1.7M barrels a day of Gulf of Mexico crude still offline line and about 2Bcf of natural gas. There is also about 2-2.2M barrels a day of refining capacity offline as power is still being restored to the region. This should be reduced to about 1.3M barrels offline through the weekend as power has been restored to some regions. The damage to Port Fourchon will cause Gulf of Mexico activity to be slow to return given 90% of deep-water activity is supported from this location. The U.S. has already started to address these issues with another six crude cargoes flagging the US bringing the total to 22, which is the highest since June 18th.