MINNEAPOLIS -- This past Thursday, June 1, signified several important events in the recovery of the Gulf Coast from the 2005 hurricane season: It was the beginning of this year's hurricane season; the Army Corps of Engineers announced that the collapse of the New Orleans levee in September was due to an engineering error; and Ray Nagin was sworn in for another term as mayor of New Orleans.
Thursday also was the day that officials from DTN asked what could have been rhetorical questions: What if last year, before hurricanes Katrina and Rita hit, you [image-nocss] knew the true impact on [gasoline] supply and production before the rest of the market did? What could you have done? How much money could you have saved? How much money could you have made? DTN thinks it has the answer in its new Hurricane SupplyCast.
The DTN Hurricane SupplyCast [allows you to] understand a hurricane's likely supply impact way before the rest of the market does, said Don Leick, director of product management for weather products for DTN. Specifically, it gives you predictions for oil and natural gas production, as well as for the entire supply infrastructure up to five days before a hurricane hits. In its complete view, it also projects out the impact on the next 365 days of that next five days of weather, as well as showing a broad view of the whole supply infrastructure.
While DTN's main target for the new product is investors interested in trade opportunities, Brian Milne, the company's editor and energy analyst, said the product certainly offers opportunities to the petroleum retailing community.
You've got to think about lifting opportunities at the rack ahead of the storms advance, he said. We certainly saw what happened after Katrina, when it was a heavy-duty squeeze going into the end of August. There were a lot of people that could not find product, and by having SupplyCast, you're going to be ahead of everybody and be able to lift [product] well in advance [of the storm].
SupplyCast combines DTN's trading and weather products with very sophisticated modeling to reach its conclusions and predictions. According to Leick, the new product was run as a test last hurricane season and showed extremely accurate results that matched up with actual supply histories. You get the overall market impact, down to the specifics of refineries, he said.
DTN's Hurricane SupplyCast is updated hourly during bad weather and forecasts gas production, oil production, pipeline impact, refining impact and port/terminal closures. More information is available by visiting www.dtn.com/promo/supplycast.
Watch CSP Daily News over the next two weeks for updates on hurricane season preparations and watch for the June issue of CSP magazine for complete coverage of how Gulf Coast retailers are coping months after Hurricane Katrina struck the area.Members help make our journalism possible. Become a CSP member today and unlock exclusive benefits, including unlimited access to all of our content. Sign up here.