Hurricane Rita coverage: Houston Chronicle - Rita Blog - SciGuy Blog | KHOU.com - Rita blog | Houston-Galveston Emergency Blog Network

12:56 Thursday
Where the refineries are around Houston.

2:56 p.m. Ron Franscell, an editor at the Beaumont (TX) Enterprise, blogs plans to shift coverage online and bring in porta-johns.

1:20 p.m. After seeing an ominous Reuters headline (Rita may be 'national disaster': oil CEO), I found a RigLogix map that tracks Rita's path through the oil fields and platforms of the Gulf of Mexico.

Below, I've pasted a current screenshot, followed by a screenshot of the NOAA projected path, because a hurricane is not a line, as you might think if you only look at the map plotting the rigs. (It looks like the line misses them!) Rita is a wide storm covering a huge area, as you can see in the satellite photo.

Here's the link to the frequently changing NOAA 3-day tracking map.

From KRT, Hurricane Rita could spark new surge in fuel prices:

Hurricane Rita threatens serious damage to the energy infrastructure in and around the Gulf of Mexico and could send fuel prices skyrocketing anew.

Oil companies battened down offshore oil rigs and platforms yesterday in the central and western Gulf and evacuated offshore personnel.

"All of the operators and drilling contractors are taking extra precautions for Rita because they've seen what can happen after Katrina," said David Kent, an owner and editor of the Houston-based Web site Rigzone.com. "I think it's a matter of getting out of Dodge right now."

The Web site, a favorite of energy analysts, warned yesterday that Rita threatens the most productive area of deepwater oil rigs and platforms.

Chevron, Royal Dutch Shell, ExxonMobil and British Petroleum also announced evacuations of manned oil platforms and rigs. Some energy analysts believe that's an ominous admission.

"They're pretty good about predicting these things," said Craig Smith, an energy expert and author of the forthcoming book "Black Gold Stranglehold," which examines fuel prices.