Governor Releases Friday Fuel Update

Governor Sonny Perdue today released the latest information on fuel production from the Gulf of Mexico:

Power outages – There are still more than 410,000 people without power in Texas, including some fuel production facilities. Crews are making rapid progress restoring power – yesterday about 485,000 people were reported without power.

Percent “shut-in” – The U.S. Department of Energy reports 59.3 percent of crude oil production capacity in the Gulf of Mexico is out. This is a slight improvement from yesterday, when 62.5 percent of capacity was out. On Monday, September 22, 89.2 percent of capacity was out.

Refineries – About half of Gulf refineries are considered “back to normal” while the other half are at varying stages of returning to normal production.

On September 25, the U.S. Department of Energy stated that it is delivering 500,000 barrels of emergency exchange oil to Citgo’s refinery at Lake Charles, LA and 150,000 barrels to Alon’s Krotz Springs, LA refinery. From September 8 through September 25, DOE released 3.949 million barrels of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) due to disruptions from hurricanes Gustav and Ike.

“Today’s figures show improvement in both the efforts to get power restored in Texas and increasing the crude oil production capacity in the Gulf,” Governor Perdue said. “While these numbers are encouraging, they also show we are still not close to full production resuming. I want to encourage Georgians to continue to do what they can to conserve fuel.”

Governor Perdue also today extended a previous Executive Order which allows larger shipments of fuel into the state. A copy of the Executive Order is attached.

The Georgia Environmental Authorities Authority has added a page to its website in order to provide Georgians with information about gas prices and gas availability. Consumers can access this information by going www.gefa.org and looking under the News and Notices section.

Some practical fuel efficiency tips for drivers include:

· Drive sensibly: Speeding, rapid acceleration (jackrabbit starts), and rapid braking lowers gas mileage.
· Choose the right vehicle: If you own more than one vehicle, drive the one that gets better gas mileage whenever possible.
· Decrease speed: Gas mileage decreases rapidly when driving more than 60 miles-per-hour.
· Avoid idling: Idling gets zero miles per gallon. Cars with larger engines typically waste more gas while idling than cars with smaller engines.
· Commute alternatives are also a useful way to conserve fuel, including telework, carpool and transit options, and flexible work schedules. More information is available about commute alternatives at www.CleanAirCampaign.com.

These figures above come from the Department of Energy’s daily situation report. The complete report is available at: http://www.oe.netl.doe.gov/docs/2008_SitRep_19_Ike_092608_12PM.pdf .
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