It's Not Just Oil

Today's Marketplace reminds us that it's not just oil and gas that's been affected by Hurricane Katrina--it's also natural gas used for heating homes. Here are my transcribed key bits:

Barbara Shook (Energy Intelligence Group): This storm has been incredibly significant in terms of natural gas, far more so than with oil or with refined products. Glaser: A week after the hurricane, 8 to 9 percent of the country's natural gas production is still offline. Shook said it could take up to a year to get some pipelines and processing plants running again. And unlike crude oil, Uncle Sam can't take the edge of the chill by dipping into strategic reserves. Shook: We have no publicly owned strategic reserves of natural gas. They are owned by either customers or producers or marketers. David Purcell: We can't just ramp up spending by oil and gas companies and go drill our way out of this problem. Glaser: David Purcell is with Pickering Energy Partners. He say energy resources in this country are running low. Many natural gas fields are tapped out, and it's hard to find new ones. So why not buy our way out of the problem and import more of the stuff? Purcell says it's not that easy. In many ports around the country, liquid natural gas terminals are already running at near capacity. And getting the go-ahead to build new ones can be tough. [...] Glaser: Economist David Weis of Standard and Poors says that higher gasoline prices and higher heating costs add up to a double whammy. He thinks it might cut consumer spending by as much as 1 percent this winter.