Mississippi river flooding threatens Louisiana oil, natural-gas production

The rising floodwaters of the Mississippi River, threatening towns and farms between Memphis and the Gulf of Mexico, may affect 10 percent of Louisiana's onshore crude oil production, reports Bloomberg. A total of 2,264 oil wells are responsible for about 19,000 barrels of crude a day, said Matt Ross, communications director for the Louisiana Oil and Gas Association. He said 150 companies are preparing for flooding in a four-parish area in the southern part of the state. As much as 252.6 million cubic feet a day of gas may be threatened, said Anna Dearmon, a spokeswoman for the Louisiana Department of Natural Resources, along with operations at 10 Louisiana refineries that account for about 14 percent of U.S. operating capacity. For weeks, the Mississippi and Ohio rivers, swollen by heavy rain and melted snow, have been inundating cities and towns, flooding cropland and disrupting shipping. The Ohio rose to 61.72 feet (18.8 meters), a record in Cairo, Illinois, before joining the Mississippi there. The threat of that flood reaching Baton Rouge and New Orleans has the Mississippi River Commission considering opening the 125 gates of the Morganza Floodway. Built in 1954, and only used in 1973, the floodway would release 600,000 cubic feet of water per second into central Louisiana and the Atchafalaya River, taking pressure off the Mississippi and the cities downstream, according to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The decision will be made if the flow at Louisiana's Red River Landing north of Baton Rouge reaches 1.5 million cubic feet per second, said Ricky Boyette, a corps spokesman. The flow has now reached at 1.48 million cubic feet per second.