美国墨西哥湾石油供应中断导致该地区市场暂时紧张

据美国彭博新闻社2022年8月12日报道，美国路易斯安那州增压站泄漏导致该地区两条输油管道中断以后，位于墨西哥湾的6个油气田被关闭。  

壳牌公司周四（8月11日）关闭了Mars和Amberjack输油管道，这两条输油管道每天可从墨西哥湾向美国海岸输送多达50万桶石油。这导致壳牌公司的Mars、Ursa和Olympus油田以及雪佛龙公司的Jack/St Malo、Tahiti和Big Foot油田关闭。 

壳牌公司发言人辛迪·巴布斯基在一封电子邮件中表示，由于增压站泄漏问题已得到控制，两条输油管道预计不日将恢复输油作业。巴布斯基没有提供这个6个油田重启生产的最新情况。

此次美国墨西哥湾石油供应中断发生在全球能源供应极其紧张之际。尽管美国政府动用紧急石油储备缓冲了美国原油库存，但美国原油库存仍低于5年平均水平。原油供应可能进一步收紧，国际能源署（International Energy Agency）预测，今年全球的石油需求将加速。

墨西哥湾石油供应中断推高了该地区含硫原油基准玛尔斯混合原油的价格。与此同时，据彭博新能源财经新闻报道，墨西哥湾干气产量下降了约2.4%，为8月2日以来最大降幅。在纽约商交所交易的9月份天然气期货价格上涨了8.4%，达到两周来的高点。

李峻 编译自 美国彭博新闻社

原文如下：

Oil Outages in Gulf of Mexico Straining Tight Market

Six oil and gas fields in the Gulf of Mexico have been shut after a leak at a Louisiana booster station halted two pipelines in the region. 

Shell Plc on Thursday shut its Mars and Amberjack pipelines which together can move as much as 500,000 barrels a day of oil from the Gulf of Mexico to the coast. That resulted in the closure of Shell’s Mars, Ursa and Olympus fields, as well as Chevron Corp.’s Jack/St. Malo, Tahiti and Big Foot fields, the companies said.

Both pipelines are expected to resume service Friday as the leak has been contained, Shell spokesperson Cindy Babski said in an email. She didn’t provide an update on restarting production at the fields. 

The outage comes at a time when global energy supplies are exceedingly tight. While US crude inventories have been cushioned by the government’s tapping of emergency oil reserves, stocks nevertheless remain below the five-year average. Supplies could tighten further, with the International Energy Agency forecasting that oil demand will accelerate this year. 

The disruption of supplies in the Gulf of Mexico strengthened prices for Mars Blend crude, a regional sour crude benchmark. Meanwhile, Gulf of Mexico dry-gas production is down about 2.4%, the most since Aug. 2, according BloombergNEF. September gas futures traded in New York are up as much as 8.4% to a two-week high.