Hurricanes, Oil & Shipping

It is absolutely upsetting to see the pictures and read the stories of those affected so dramatically by the hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico. The devastation in some of these communities seems irreversible.

A silver lining with these 2008 storms is the minimal damage to the oil refineries in the Gulf. The anticipated but un-materialized damage to infrastructure has taken some of the crazy speculation out of the global oil market.

With the price per drum dropping below $100 per barrel from a high of nearly $150 I suspect that the inflationary pressures on many products will weaken. More importantly the cost of shipping and fuel surcharges should start to come down - although I'm sure not as quickly as they went up in the past 12 months.

Blast Cleaning Steel

Historically, steel has been blasted using silica sand. For obvious health reasons (potential silicosis hazard), silica is not a safe media to use. Many industrial contractors, municipalities and military facilities are now using Crushed Glass Grit to blast steel.

Crushed Glass Grit will remove paint, dirt, soils and rust leaving a 'white' metal surface. Depending on the grit size used, a micro-finish can be achieved so that the steel can be immediately primed and painted with no further preparation.

Produced from recycled bottle (mostly) glass, Crushed Glass Grit contains no free silica, heavy metals and is approved in many of the most stringent air quality districts. Crushed Glass Grit is also considered a green blasting media since it is 'neutral' to the environment.