Gulf Storm Threat Sparks Rig Evacuations

Gulf of Mexico energy platforms began evacuations and shutdowns a weather system off the Yucatan Peninsula threatened to turn a tropical storm over the weekend.

There’s a 90 percent chance cluster of thunderstorms, drifting northward, become a tropical depression or Tropical Storm Debby within the 48 hours, the National Hurricane Center said. Computer forecast models disagree the system’s track.

“The center circulation of the broad area of low pressure over the Gulf of Mexico appears to be becoming better defined,” the center said in advisory before 8 a.m. New York time. “A tropical depression, or likely a tropical storm, could form later today or tonight the development trend continues.”

The Gulf of Mexico is home 6.5 percent of U.S. natural gas production, 29 percent of oil output and 40 percent of refining capacity. Offshore oil and natural gas platforms need to carry evacuations well advance of a storm’s arrival, so any system in the Gulf can cause production disruptions.

Ferrying Personnel
BHP Billiton Ltd. (BHP) shut the Neptune and Shenzi platforms, can together produce 150,000 barrels of oil day and 100 million cubic feet gas. Murphy Oil Corp. (MUR) (MUR) began evacuating non-essential workers the Gulf yesterday, as Anadarko Petroleum Corp. (APC) (APC), Marathon Oil Corp., Nexen Inc. (NXY), Enterprise Products Partners LP and Hess Corp. (HES) (HES), the companies said in e-mailed statements or their websites.

Royal Dutch Shell Plc (RDSA) may evacuate some non-essential workers central and western Gulf rigs in the next few days, the company said on its website.

addition, ERA Helicopters LLC of St. Charles, Louisiana, reported it’s ferrying personnel from off-shore platforms. Melanie Landry, a spokeswoman ERA, declined to comment on companies had called for evacuations.

“ that the U.S. Gulf now has become a significant exporter of products, it is a more difficult to estimate the net impact U.S. Gulf tropical storms, as delays in export shipments to bad weather can also translate into product stock builds,” Olivier Jakob, managing director of Switzerland- based energy researcher Petromatrix, said an e-mailed report.

‘Squashed Spider’
Computer models can’t a clear indication of where the system may go because there isn’t a storm , Dennis Feltgen, a spokesman for the hurricane center in Miami, said a telephone interview.

“They’re over the place,” he said. “The models are going to look like a squashed spider, so I wouldn’t any stock in it.”

A U.S. Air Force Reserve reconnaissance flight scheduled to investigate the area yesterday was canceled and rescheduled today, Feltgen said.

The system has potential, however.

“That is definitely a system that has to be attention to,” said Tom Kines, an expert senior meteorologist at AccuWeather Inc. in State College, Pennsylvania. “I think the odds are pretty high that it will be a named storm before the weekend is over.”

A storm gets a name when its winds reach 39 miles (63 kilometers) hour. Kines said warm water and low wind shear in the Gulf will allow system to organize and strengthen.


Adapted and abridged from: businessweek.com, June 23, 2012.