Oil companies, retailers brace for Harvey’s Texas impact

Aug. 24--Energy companies evacuated workers from offshore gulf drilling platforms, grocery stores boosted inventories to ensure shelves remain stocked and commodities traders placed bets on the direction of oil and gas prices as Hurricane Harvey bore down on the Texas coast.

Lisa Ashley, a Port of Houston Authority spokeswoman, said emergency preparations for Harvey were under way Thursday afternoon but that the port's eight public terminals -- which handle 70 percent of the container traffic coming through the Gulf of Mexico -- so far remained open.

"Right now, at this point, there has been no announcement of the Port of Houston terminals being closed," Ashley said. But "we're obviously monitoring the situation, and at any moment there could be a change in the status of terminal operations."

Operators of offshore Gulf drilling rigs, more immediately affected by the first hurricane expected to hit the Texas coast since 2008, weren't waiting. Exxon Mobil, Royal Dutch Shell, Anadarko Petroleum and others were pre-emptively evacuating personnel.

Exxon Mobil said it was moving all employees from locations in the storm's path, including its Hoover and Galveston 209 drilling platforms, although it declined to disclose the number of evacuations. It said it had shut some offshore gulf facilities temporarily, but, as of Thursday afternoon, its refineries were operating normally.

Anadarko Petroleum said it had evacuated employees and shut production at some of facilities as well, and was "prepared to remove additional personnel and shut in other operated facilities in the gulf if necessary."

Perhaps counterintuitively, however, oil prices fell as investors eyed the possibility that gulf refineries will be flooded by the storm and have to shut down at least temporarily, hurting the demand for crude oil. West Texas Intermediate for October delivery fell 98 cents to settle at $47.43 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

Meanwhile, San Antonio-based grocery chain H-E-B., the largest private employer in Texas, instituted an emergency plan to help safeguard its workers in the storm's path, as well as help respond to any community food shortages in the aftermath. The grocer said none of its stores had been closed as of Thursday afternoon, and that it was working to make sure inventories don't run out at stores outside the hurricane's path.

"We're thinking about not only what customers need now, but also what they might need two days from now (and) three days from now," H-E-B spokeswoman Leslie Sweet said, adding that the company was keeping stock levels high and strategically staging products at locations around the state.

In addition, Sweet said H-E-B.'s Mobile Kitchen trailer, capable of serving 2,500 meals per hour, was being prepared to respond if needed for disaster relief.

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