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Texas Power Grid Operator Warns Blackouts Could Last Several More Days
Posted
February 18, 2021
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February 18, 2021
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6:33Now PlayingThe crisis that has knocked out power for days to millions of homes and businesses in Texas and across the central U.S. is getting worse, with blackouts expected to last until at least Thursday.
Texas’s grid operator cut power to 2.8 million homes Wednesday morning, just hours after restoring service to 700,000 households. Load on the state’s power system fell overnight to the lowest level since early Monday, when the agency instituted rolling blackouts to keep the grid from total collapse amid an extreme cold blast. The data signal that the agency has made little to no progress in getting the lights and heat back on.
In the meantime, economic fallout is cascading. U.S. oil production has plunged by nearly 40%. Fracking in the top U.S. shale plays has gone dark. Wheat futures surged as the freeze snarled grain shipments. Coronavirus vaccine shipment are delayed. Amazon.com Inc. closed facilities from Illinois to Texas.
“The current energy crisis is much bigger than most people realize. This is a global crisis,” Paul Sankey, an oil analyst at Sankey Research, wrote in a note. “The largest energy outage in U.S. history.”
The outages and cold are wreaking havoc on oil and gas. Crude output has plunged by 4 million barrels a day -- the most ever -- according to traders and industry executives with direct knowledge of the operations. Gas production has plummeted to the lowest level since 2017. Citgo Petroleum Corp., Occidental Petroleum Corp. and Plains All American pipeline were among companies that declared force majeure.
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