This is a summary of commentary originally published by the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University on August 29, 2017.

Three days after Hurricane Harvey made landfall near Houston, Texas rains continue to lash the region, unleashing catastrophic flooding. In a new commentary, Senior Research Scholar Antoine Halff writes that apart from the human suffering, the storm’s devastating impact should also serve as a powerful reminder that no country, no matter how large its oil and gas production may be, is fully insulated from the risk of an energy supply disruption. Indeed, the larger a country’s production volumes, the greater its risk exposure. The flipside of US energy ‘dominance’ -- and more specifically of the phenomenal US ramp-up in oil and gas production, refining activity and petrochemical output unleashed by shale in the last few years -- may thus paradoxically be, in some ways, heightened energy vulnerability. As such, Halff concludes, when the water finally recedes, energy companies and policy makers will have to evaluate not only newly exposed risks but also the effectiveness of existing response measures and tools such as the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve. 

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Antoine Halff

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