Power outages hinder Hurricane Beryl recovery, delay oil infrastructure restarts

By Arathy Somasekhar, Marianna Parraga and Curtis Williams

HOUSTON (Reuters) -About 1.7 million customers remained without power in Texas on Wednesday morning, two days after Hurricane Beryl made landfall, as progress to restore power was slow during the night, hampering efforts to quickly restart critical oil infrastructure.

The storm made landfall as a Category 1 hurricane on Monday near the coastal town of Matagorda, about 100 miles (160 km) from Houston, lashing Texas with heavy winds that knocked down power lines and damaged property.

Reinsurance broker Gallagher Re estimated that U.S. economic losses from Beryl would be at least $1 billion as damage assessments continue, while weather forecasting firm AccuWeather issued a preliminary estimate of $28 billion to $32 billion in U.S. damage and economic loss.

About 1.36 million of the 1.7 million people without power are customers of CenterPoint Energy, the state’s largest provider.

CenterPoint said on Wednesday it had restored power to more than 615,000 customers in the previous 24 hours, adding that it remains confident it will restore 1 million impacted customers by the end of the day.

Freeport LNG, the second-largest U.S. liquefied natural gas terminal, was preparing to resume processing by Thursday, two sources close to the matter said, after power was restored. But LNG exports from the terminal are not expected to restart until the port, which is operating under restrictions, fully reopens vessel traffic.

A spokesperson for Freeport LNG told Reuters the company “intends to resume liquefaction when post-storm assessments are complete and it is safe to do so.”

Ports along the Texas Gulf Coast, which had shut ahead of the hurricane, continued reopening on Wednesday, some of them with restrictions.

The Port of Freeport said it was open and operating, while shipping agents said certain traffic restrictions remained in place. Port facilities were running on backup power as utility crews worked to restore electricity, the port officials said on Tuesday.

The Port of Houston said it would reopen on Wednesday, after allowing some inbound vessels, also with restrictions.

At the Port of Galveston, cruise ships began to sail while cargo operations were expected to resume on Wednesday. The port experienced relatively minor damage and some power outages, said Rodger Rees, Galveston Wharves port director.

Refineries and offshore production sites saw limited damage and had largely returned to normal operations.

Some customers have questioned whether CenterPoint had enough crews in place ahead of the storm. Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick said an analysis would be conducted after power is restored.

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CenterPoint said its crews were positioned where they would be safe when the storm hit and were deployed on Monday when the landfall site was known as soon as it was safe to do so.

(Reporting by Arathy Somasekhar, Marianna Parraga and Curtis Williams in Houston; Editing by Ros Russell and Rod Nickel)