Cyclone Gonu packing winds of up to 260 kilometres (160 miles) an hour is advancing Tuesday towards the oil-producing Gulf state of Oman where it is expected to make landfall within 24 hours. The cyclone is advancing toward the Omani coast at a speed of 12 kilometres an hour, accompanied by torrential rains, storms and winds at the centre of the cyclone of 115 to 140 knots, or 212 to 260 kilometres an hour," it said.
Oman has evacuated 7,000 people from coastal areas, police said. Residents of the island of Masirah in the Arabian Sea as well as of Oman's eastern coastline have sought refuge on higher ground. (Baku Today)
A Category 5 cyclone with winds of up to 195 mph is heading toward one of the world’s most productive energy basins, threatening local devastation and global disruption at a point at which oil prices are already flirting with record highs. For once, the region in question is not the Gulf of Mexico. There is some cause for concern; Cyclone Gonu is headed directly for the Strait of Hormuz.
The cyclone is rotating counterclockwise — as it would in the Gulf of Mexico — meaning that, should it enter the Persian Gulf, the gulf’s west coast would suffer the most serious damage. Along the west coast, low-lying areas are the norm, and there are few barrier islands like the ones that line the Gulf of Mexico to absorb much of the storm surge that could therefore penetrate miles inland.
Like all weather phenomena, hurricanes and cyclones are notoriously fickle, so there is (thankfully) no guarantee Gonu will enter the Persian Gulf, much less wreck it.
But there are two facilities that bear specific mention: the Ras Tanura and Ras al-Juaymah oil loading platforms in Saudi Arabia. So far, the chances of either of these facilities suffering a direct hit are very slim.
Gonu is still 750 miles away from those export points — but they collectively pump nearly 10 million barrels per day (bpd) of crude. These facilities, while critical to global energy supplies and — due to their size — largely immune to terrorist attacks, are not particularly hurricane resistant. After all, they were built in an area where such storms are almost unheard of. Other (hardly insignificant) energy installations dot the region in Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates — most of them on the west coast. Luckily, there is little offshore production in the Persian Gulf — unlike in the Gulf of Mexico — so there is unlikely to be much permanent damage to the oil production facilities themselves. (Cryptogon).
Fingers Crossed eh?
