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Originally Posted by fatlazyless
... from where does NH and the rest of the US get its' oil &/or gasoline? ...
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From what I've been hearing, most the eastern refining capability is in the Gulf states. A large part of our imported crude as well as Gulf production comes ashore in areas hit by Katrina. Additionally the main pipelines from Texas, Omaha and other oil producing states outside the storm areas transit Louisianna and Mississippi.
Those facilities use electric pumps along the way to keep the product flowing. Electricity delivery to the pump stations was cut off and is still in the process of being restored. As they get emergency power to the facilities they expect to get at least some flow restored. Refineries in the storm area will probably be restarted after the delivery system is able to accept their fuel.
The eastern/midwestern part of the country supposedly uses about 9 million gallons of fuel a day and when Katrina hit there was aprox 190 millions gallons in local storage. The bulk of cost increase is coming from the distributors. Depending on your point of view they are either taking advantage of market fears or trying to discourage consumption by raising prices because they are still selling fuel they had on hand already.
In the meantime, imported crude is probably floating off the coast waiting for refinery capacity to become available. Some of it is probably being diverted to other US ports with storage or refinery facilities. I expect some of it will probably be re-sold on the world market so the tankers can turn around and be ready with another load when we can use it.
The west-coast states have a system of refineries and pipelines to service areas west of the Rocky Mountains. There may be some pipe-line connection through the south-western states but that flow will still be bottle-necked in the storm zone.
Ken