Looks like Hurricane Milton is going to really hit Florida hard. As of 10am today, landfall is projected to be just south of Tampa on Wednesday night, but this can change.
I want to recognize here that this will have an enormous impact on the lives of people living in this area. I did rescue work after the San Francisco earthquake and the impact to people cannot be overstated and I don’t want my analysis to dismiss the significance of this storm to those affected. Stay safe out there.
Having said that, this hurricane will not hit the major LNG infrastructure. Some offshore production could be shut in, but not a significant amount. However, the hurricane will surely destroy a lot of electricity delivery infrastructure in central Florida. The outages will reduce electricity demand, and as a consequence, the demand for natural gas for generation. This is on top of the people still without power from Hurricane Helene. For reference, Hurricane Ian had a significant impact and resulted in almost 4 bcf/day reduction in natural gas demand. Moreover, when Hurricane Beryl damaged the Freeport LNG facility, it was down for a week, resulting in a loss of 2bcf/day of demand.