Outages Stall Hurricane Beryl Recovery, Delay Port and Infrastructure Restart

About 1.7 million customers in Texas were still without power on Wednesday morning, two days after Hurricane Beryl made landfall, impeding efforts to restore crucial oil infrastructure. The hurricane struck as a Category 1 storm near Matagorda, around 100 miles from Houston, bringing heavy winds that downed power lines and caused property damage. Gallagher Re, a reinsurance broker, estimated U.S. economic losses from Beryl to be at least $1 billion, while AccuWeather's preliminary estimate ranged from $28 billion to $32 billion in total damage and economic loss.

Among those affected, 1.4 million are customers of CenterPoint Energy, Texas' largest power provider. CenterPoint reported that it had restored power to over 615,000 customers in the past 24 hours and remains confident about restoring power to 1 million customers by the end of the day. However, some customers questioned if CenterPoint had adequate crews in place before the storm. Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick announced that an analysis would be conducted after power is fully restored. CenterPoint claimed its crews were strategically positioned to ensure their safety during the storm and were deployed promptly once it was safe.

Meanwhile, Freeport LNG, the third-largest liquefied natural gas facility in the U.S., reduced production on Sunday and has not provided an operational update. Ports along the Texas Gulf Coast, which had shut down ahead of the hurricane, were beginning to reopen with certain restrictions. The Port of Houston planned to reopen on Wednesday, allowing some in-bound vessels with restrictions. Cruise operations resumed at the Port of Galveston, while cargo operations were expected to restart on Wednesday, although some facilities were still affected by power outages on Tuesday.

The Port of Freeport reported it was open and functioning, although some traffic restrictions remained. Backup power was being utilized at port facilities as utility crews worked to restore regular power. In contrast, refineries and offshore production facilities incurred limited damage and were primarily back to normal operations.