Showing posts with label Hurricane Katrina. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Hurricane Katrina. Show all posts
[UNITED STATES] With little damage to oil patch, prices dip
Published | 02-Sep-2008
The oil and gas industry breathed a tentative sigh of relief Monday after preliminary reports suggested Hurricane Gustav did little damage to energy facilities both onshore and off, helping send oil prices sharply downward.
Early updates from Gulf of Mexico drillers and oil and natural gas producers were "very promising," with no major damage reported, said Lars Herbst, regional director for Minerals Management Service, the Interior Department office that regulates the offshore oil and gas industry.
Refiners were beginning to send crews Monday to assess facilities in Louisiana, meanwhile, and hoped to resume operations quickly. But Herbst and energy companies cautioned it could be days before a full assessment of Gustav's impact is known. Until then, offshore oil and gas installations and refineries could remain closed.
The weaker storm coupled with a stronger dollar helped send light, sweet crude for October delivery down $4.34 to $111.12 by Monday evening on the New York Mercantile Exchange. U.S. markets were closed for Labor Day, but traders had after-hours access electronically.
President Bush said Monday he would allow purchases of crude oil from the nation's Strategic Petroleum Reserve, the emergency stockpile that now holds roughly 700 million barrels of oil, if refineries needed the stock because of Gustav-related outages. It was not clear late Monday if any company had taken him up on the offer.
Gustav, which roared across western Cuba as a massive Category 5 storm, barely registered major hurricane status as it spun through the offshore Louisiana oil patch early Monday morning, with 115 mph winds near its eye. By the time it made landfall later Monday morning, it was a Category 2 storm with 110 mph maximum sustained winds.
The storm's center appeared to pass close to several major offshore installations, including Shell's Mars platform, whose drilling rig was crumpled by Katrina three years ago.
Planes to look for damage
Major producers with offshore installations, including ConocoPhillips and ExxonMobil, said they would inspect their facilities from the air as soon as it was safe.
Two major offshore drillers said the storm did not appear to do major damage to rigs in its path.
"So far, so good," said Guy Cantwell, spokesman for Houston-based Transocean, the world's largest offshore drilling contractor. The company moved eight self-propelled rigs out of the way ahead of Gustav, leaving three moored rigs in its path.
Based on satellite tracking, the three rigs appear to have remained in place, but the company was hoping to confirm assessments after doing flyovers.
"If they stay in place, that will be a big success for the industry," Cantwell said, noting improvements in hurricane preparedness by offshore oil and gas companies since devastating storms in 2005.
Les Van Dyke, spokesman for Diamond Offshore, another major Houston driller, also said its four to six rigs affected by the storm appear to have withstood Gustav's impact. Workers could be back on rigs as early as Wednesday, Van Dyke said.
The upbeat reports came after forecasters had said Gustav could move into the Gulf Coast as a much fiercer storm.
"If Gustav had been a Category 4 hurricane (minimum 131 mph winds), we would have expected losses on the nature of $25 billion plus," said Tom Larsen, senior vice president of EQECAT, an Oakland, Calif.-based firm that does risk modeling.
Instead, the firm predicts insured losses from Gustav would be in the $6 billion-to-$10 billion range, including damage to energy infrastructure.
Workers evacuated rigs
By Monday, companies had shut down 100 percent of Gulf of Mexico oil production and 95.4 percent of natural gas output, the Minerals Management Service said. That meant about 1.3 million barrels of daily oil production and 7.4 billion cubic feet a day of gas was offline.
Workers from 100 rigs and 626 production platforms evacuated.
But offshore facilities were seen as better able to withstand strong storms after making improvements since hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005, which brought massive damage.
In anticipation of the storm, many companies, including Valero Energy, ExxonMobil and Shell Oil, had either halted production or reduced output at several major refineries in Texas and Louisiana.
As of late Monday, those facilities remained closed. Once given the all-clear, the plants could take as long as two weeks to return to full production.
Effect on fuel prices
Because the Gulf Coast is home to 42 percent of the nation's refining capacity, even minor outages can tighten fuel supplies nationwide and send gasoline and diesel fuel prices higher. On Monday, the national average for regular gasoline held at $3.69 per gallon, while diesel fell one penny to $4.26 per gallon, according to AAA's Daily Fuel Gauge Report.
After Katrina, gasoline prices spiked 18 percent nationwide as Gulf Coast refineries struggled to resume operation. The same jump today would push U.S. pump prices to about $4.35 a gallon, said Tom Kloza, an oil analyst with the Oil Price Information Service said in a report before the storm.
But given current weakness in U.S. gasoline demand, he predicted a more modest increase of 10 cents to 30 cents per gallon at worst.
Early updates from Gulf of Mexico drillers and oil and natural gas producers were "very promising," with no major damage reported, said Lars Herbst, regional director for Minerals Management Service, the Interior Department office that regulates the offshore oil and gas industry.
Refiners were beginning to send crews Monday to assess facilities in Louisiana, meanwhile, and hoped to resume operations quickly. But Herbst and energy companies cautioned it could be days before a full assessment of Gustav's impact is known. Until then, offshore oil and gas installations and refineries could remain closed.
The weaker storm coupled with a stronger dollar helped send light, sweet crude for October delivery down $4.34 to $111.12 by Monday evening on the New York Mercantile Exchange. U.S. markets were closed for Labor Day, but traders had after-hours access electronically.
President Bush said Monday he would allow purchases of crude oil from the nation's Strategic Petroleum Reserve, the emergency stockpile that now holds roughly 700 million barrels of oil, if refineries needed the stock because of Gustav-related outages. It was not clear late Monday if any company had taken him up on the offer.
Gustav, which roared across western Cuba as a massive Category 5 storm, barely registered major hurricane status as it spun through the offshore Louisiana oil patch early Monday morning, with 115 mph winds near its eye. By the time it made landfall later Monday morning, it was a Category 2 storm with 110 mph maximum sustained winds.
The storm's center appeared to pass close to several major offshore installations, including Shell's Mars platform, whose drilling rig was crumpled by Katrina three years ago.
Planes to look for damage
Major producers with offshore installations, including ConocoPhillips and ExxonMobil, said they would inspect their facilities from the air as soon as it was safe.
Two major offshore drillers said the storm did not appear to do major damage to rigs in its path.
"So far, so good," said Guy Cantwell, spokesman for Houston-based Transocean, the world's largest offshore drilling contractor. The company moved eight self-propelled rigs out of the way ahead of Gustav, leaving three moored rigs in its path.
Based on satellite tracking, the three rigs appear to have remained in place, but the company was hoping to confirm assessments after doing flyovers.
"If they stay in place, that will be a big success for the industry," Cantwell said, noting improvements in hurricane preparedness by offshore oil and gas companies since devastating storms in 2005.
Les Van Dyke, spokesman for Diamond Offshore, another major Houston driller, also said its four to six rigs affected by the storm appear to have withstood Gustav's impact. Workers could be back on rigs as early as Wednesday, Van Dyke said.
The upbeat reports came after forecasters had said Gustav could move into the Gulf Coast as a much fiercer storm.
"If Gustav had been a Category 4 hurricane (minimum 131 mph winds), we would have expected losses on the nature of $25 billion plus," said Tom Larsen, senior vice president of EQECAT, an Oakland, Calif.-based firm that does risk modeling.
Instead, the firm predicts insured losses from Gustav would be in the $6 billion-to-$10 billion range, including damage to energy infrastructure.
Workers evacuated rigs
By Monday, companies had shut down 100 percent of Gulf of Mexico oil production and 95.4 percent of natural gas output, the Minerals Management Service said. That meant about 1.3 million barrels of daily oil production and 7.4 billion cubic feet a day of gas was offline.
Workers from 100 rigs and 626 production platforms evacuated.
But offshore facilities were seen as better able to withstand strong storms after making improvements since hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005, which brought massive damage.
In anticipation of the storm, many companies, including Valero Energy, ExxonMobil and Shell Oil, had either halted production or reduced output at several major refineries in Texas and Louisiana.
As of late Monday, those facilities remained closed. Once given the all-clear, the plants could take as long as two weeks to return to full production.
Effect on fuel prices
Because the Gulf Coast is home to 42 percent of the nation's refining capacity, even minor outages can tighten fuel supplies nationwide and send gasoline and diesel fuel prices higher. On Monday, the national average for regular gasoline held at $3.69 per gallon, while diesel fell one penny to $4.26 per gallon, according to AAA's Daily Fuel Gauge Report.
After Katrina, gasoline prices spiked 18 percent nationwide as Gulf Coast refineries struggled to resume operation. The same jump today would push U.S. pump prices to about $4.35 a gallon, said Tom Kloza, an oil analyst with the Oil Price Information Service said in a report before the storm.
But given current weakness in U.S. gasoline demand, he predicted a more modest increase of 10 cents to 30 cents per gallon at worst.
Source: Houston Chronicle | By BRETT CLANTON
(Associated Press contributed to this report.)
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[UNITED STATES] The gas prices, For die-hard drivers, it's just a matter of economics
Published | 05-May-2008Laura Regan gave up her queen of the road status months ago for a seat on the bus. Though the transition was less than elegant, it was simple economics: Parking fees and fuel costs, even for her hybrid sport utility vehicle, were just too high, she said. Regan is a medical technologist and commutes to the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center from the Cypress Park & Ride lot. Her daily round trip is 76 miles. With gasoline prices at $3.51 a gallon — and seemingly headed for $4 — she figures she saves more than $200 a month on the bus.
"I love it," she said. "It's less stress."
Area residents, who otherwise would never part with their cars, now feel compelled by record fuel costs to look at alternatives, such as carpooling or telecommuting. Many also are turning to mass transit.
Several who were riding Metropolitan Transit Authority Park & Ride buses last week said they were saving wear and tear on their nerves at the same time. The rides are a time to escape with a book, listen to music or catch up on some Zs.
Traffic jams are other peoples' worries.
Last fall, the Chronicle examined two years' worth of monthly boarding data from Metro and monthly gasoline prices in Houston, but found no clear link between them. Both numbers went up and down, seemingly at random. That has changed.
Ridership counts for October through March are up nearly 3 percent compared to the same period 12 months earlier. Metro officials put the actual increase at more than 6 percent when adjusted to reflect more accurate counts made by sensors in the bus and train doors, starting in October.
Gas prices shot up
The price of regular gasoline rose 35 percent during the same period. Boardings for the six months on Park & Ride buses, which travel the long routes that eat deep into commuters' wallets, increased 13 percent over the previous year.
Metro's April data are not out yet, but in March, when gas prices here averaged $3.15 a gallon (32 percent higher than in March 2007), Park & Ride boardings were up 16 percent compared with a year ago.
Metro attributes about 40 percent of that gain to the opening of two new Park & Ride lots in Katy and Baytown, but says the rest is because of higher gas prices.
Metro also saw its boardings shoot up after Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Much of that reflected the influx of evacuees to Houston. But there also was a nationwide increase in transit use sparked by the higher fuel prices after the storm, American Public Transportation Association spokeswoman Virginia Miller said.
A change in habits
Fuel prices approached $3 in 2006, then dipped during the summer. But transit use did not go down.
"People had changed their travel habits and were staying with it," Miller said. She said there may be a "tipping point" at which large numbers of motorists will shift to mass transit, at least for their daily commutes to work, but it is not clear where that point is.
"For a lot of people across the country, $3 and just over $3 was a tipping point, since both 2006 and 2007 were record ridership years," she said.
"It may be that $3.50 is a tipping point for a whole other level of people," Miller continued. If so, she said, it would be a hardship for the 54 percent of Americans who, according to the Census Bureau, do not have access to public transit.
"We're a country that's used to independence, and having our transportation independence has pretty much been taken for granted," she said. "If people start to feel they don't have the money to travel when and where they want to go, it goes against the American grain. But these prices show we need to have other options to driving a car."
A 2005 poll on motorists' attitudes by the Urban Land Institute found that, although respondents listed gas prices as a bigger concern than traffic congestion, 90 percent said they had driven alone in the previous week. By contrast, according to a March poll by CNN and Opinion Research Corp., 64 percent said they had changed their driving behavior in response to higher gas prices, and 5 percent said they had stopped driving altogether.
Lines seem to be longer
Several longtime Metro riders said last week they had noticed buses were more crowded and lines at the bus stops were longer.
"It wasn't like that when I first started taking the bus," Regan said while waiting to transfer at Metro's Northwest Transit Center. "Now, I have to get there earlier." It was difficult for Katie Holt to give up her car for her daily commute into downtown Houston.
"This is a little more convenient, especially with gas prices the way they are," she said. "It requires a little more time, but time is nothing compared to money in my pocket."
Randall McKee enjoys his quiet commute from downtown Houston to Katy. He became a daily rider four months ago and estimates he saves $340 a month in gas, tolls and parking.
"I actually fell asleep on the bus," he said. "I never did that (driving) down the Katy Freeway."
"I love it," she said. "It's less stress."
Area residents, who otherwise would never part with their cars, now feel compelled by record fuel costs to look at alternatives, such as carpooling or telecommuting. Many also are turning to mass transit.
Several who were riding Metropolitan Transit Authority Park & Ride buses last week said they were saving wear and tear on their nerves at the same time. The rides are a time to escape with a book, listen to music or catch up on some Zs.
Traffic jams are other peoples' worries.
Last fall, the Chronicle examined two years' worth of monthly boarding data from Metro and monthly gasoline prices in Houston, but found no clear link between them. Both numbers went up and down, seemingly at random. That has changed.
Ridership counts for October through March are up nearly 3 percent compared to the same period 12 months earlier. Metro officials put the actual increase at more than 6 percent when adjusted to reflect more accurate counts made by sensors in the bus and train doors, starting in October.
Gas prices shot up
The price of regular gasoline rose 35 percent during the same period. Boardings for the six months on Park & Ride buses, which travel the long routes that eat deep into commuters' wallets, increased 13 percent over the previous year.
Metro's April data are not out yet, but in March, when gas prices here averaged $3.15 a gallon (32 percent higher than in March 2007), Park & Ride boardings were up 16 percent compared with a year ago.
Metro attributes about 40 percent of that gain to the opening of two new Park & Ride lots in Katy and Baytown, but says the rest is because of higher gas prices.
Metro also saw its boardings shoot up after Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Much of that reflected the influx of evacuees to Houston. But there also was a nationwide increase in transit use sparked by the higher fuel prices after the storm, American Public Transportation Association spokeswoman Virginia Miller said.
A change in habits
Fuel prices approached $3 in 2006, then dipped during the summer. But transit use did not go down.
"People had changed their travel habits and were staying with it," Miller said. She said there may be a "tipping point" at which large numbers of motorists will shift to mass transit, at least for their daily commutes to work, but it is not clear where that point is.
"For a lot of people across the country, $3 and just over $3 was a tipping point, since both 2006 and 2007 were record ridership years," she said.
"It may be that $3.50 is a tipping point for a whole other level of people," Miller continued. If so, she said, it would be a hardship for the 54 percent of Americans who, according to the Census Bureau, do not have access to public transit.
"We're a country that's used to independence, and having our transportation independence has pretty much been taken for granted," she said. "If people start to feel they don't have the money to travel when and where they want to go, it goes against the American grain. But these prices show we need to have other options to driving a car."
A 2005 poll on motorists' attitudes by the Urban Land Institute found that, although respondents listed gas prices as a bigger concern than traffic congestion, 90 percent said they had driven alone in the previous week. By contrast, according to a March poll by CNN and Opinion Research Corp., 64 percent said they had changed their driving behavior in response to higher gas prices, and 5 percent said they had stopped driving altogether.
Lines seem to be longer
Several longtime Metro riders said last week they had noticed buses were more crowded and lines at the bus stops were longer.
"It wasn't like that when I first started taking the bus," Regan said while waiting to transfer at Metro's Northwest Transit Center. "Now, I have to get there earlier." It was difficult for Katie Holt to give up her car for her daily commute into downtown Houston.
"This is a little more convenient, especially with gas prices the way they are," she said. "It requires a little more time, but time is nothing compared to money in my pocket."
Randall McKee enjoys his quiet commute from downtown Houston to Katy. He became a daily rider four months ago and estimates he saves $340 a month in gas, tolls and parking.
"I actually fell asleep on the bus," he said. "I never did that (driving) down the Katy Freeway."
Source: The Houston Chronicle| By RAD SALLEE and ROSANNA RUIZ
WESTERN HEMISPHERE: Gulf of Mexico sale to benefit coast in the United States of America
Published | 15-Feb-2008
The Louisiana Superdome — the terrible former camp for Hurricane Katrina victims — will host the next Central Gulf of Mexico and Eastern Gulf of Mexico lease sales on March 19, 2008, in the first auctions under a new regime for oil companies.
The central Gulf area will be sold off in 5,000 blocks more than 28.5 million acres off Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. The acreage encompasses water from three metres to 3,400 metres deep.
In the East, 547,000 acres are up for grabs in water from 810 m to 3,100 m deep. The eastern plots were last available in 1988.
"Sale 224 (in the East) is the first sale where the revenue sharing provisions of the Gulf of Mexico Energy Security Act of 2006 will start immediately,” a statement said, adding that for the first time, coastal states will share in the proceeds from the sale.
Up to 1.9 billion barrels of oil and six trillion cubic feet of gas are said to be potentially at stake.
Meanwhile, royalties have shot up two percentage points to 18.75 percent and rental rates of between $6.25 and $9.50 an being included.
The central Gulf area will be sold off in 5,000 blocks more than 28.5 million acres off Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. The acreage encompasses water from three metres to 3,400 metres deep.
In the East, 547,000 acres are up for grabs in water from 810 m to 3,100 m deep. The eastern plots were last available in 1988.
"Sale 224 (in the East) is the first sale where the revenue sharing provisions of the Gulf of Mexico Energy Security Act of 2006 will start immediately,” a statement said, adding that for the first time, coastal states will share in the proceeds from the sale.
Up to 1.9 billion barrels of oil and six trillion cubic feet of gas are said to be potentially at stake.
Meanwhile, royalties have shot up two percentage points to 18.75 percent and rental rates of between $6.25 and $9.50 an being included.
Source: Scandoil
TEXAS: Crude oil fell from a record in New York
Published | 14-Sep-2007Oil Falls From a Record as Hurricane Weakens, Spares Platforms. Crude oil fell from a record in New York after Tropical Depression Humberto weakened from a hurricane and passed over Texas without damaging oil rigs and refineries.
No damage to production units was reported at three refineries where power supplies were knocked out by the storm in Port Arthur, Texas, idling 4.8 percent of U.S. capacity. At least two of them will be running normally next week, operators Total SA and Valero Energy Corp. said. The three are among the top 30 in the U.S.
``We could see some movement downwards'' because of the ``mix of the tropical depression and the start of the refinery maintenance season,'' said Thina Saltvedt, an analyst at Nordea Bank AB in Oslo. The prospect of further storms will keep prices in the mid-$70s, she said.
Crude oil for October delivery fell as much as 64 cents, or 0.8 percent, to $79.45 on the New York Mercantile Exchange. It was at $79.56 at 12:24 p.m. in London. Brent crude oil for November settlement was trading at $76.73 a barrel, down 39 cents, on London's ICE Futures exchange.
Yesterday, oil in New York touched $80.20, the highest intraday price since trading began in 1983, and for the first time closed above $80 a barrel at $80.09. Prices are up 26 percent from a year ago.
Humberto Weakens, Ingrid Forms
Humberto weakened to a depression over southwestern Louisiana. It was about 15 miles northwest of Vicksburg, Mississippi at 4 a.m. local time, with winds about half the strength of the 39-mile-per- hour threshold required for storm status.
``Since we've seen very low petrol inventories, near the level we saw after Hurricane Katrina two years ago, the supply buffer will be sensitive'' if any storms in the rest of the hurricane season inflict actual damage, Nordea's Saltvedt said.
The ninth storm of this year's season, Tropical Storm Ingrid, is 1,300 miles east of the Caribbean's Lesser Antilles islands and moving west-northwest with winds of about 40 miles per hour, the National Hurricane Center said. The system will probably weaken on a path toward Puerto Rico, the center said at 5 a.m. Miami time.
The Atlantic hurricane season, from June through November, can threaten oil facilities along the Gulf of Mexico coast.
Yesterday's record high was also caused by a U.S. Energy Department report that crude stockpiles saw the year's biggest decline last week. A decision by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries to pump more oil failed to allay speculation of a shortage of crude next quarter, contributing to the gain.
``Prices could reach the mid $80s this year under these circumstances'' depending on OPEC's policy in coming months, said Heliodoro Quintero, an oil consultant and former governor of the organization. OPEC will review quotas again in December.
Rhetorical Increase
The output increase is just ``rhetoric,'' because OPEC may not have 500,000 barrels of spare capacity, especially as Persian Gulf suppliers are preparing for field maintenance, Matt Simmons, chairman of Houston-based Simmons & Co. International, said in an interview today.
OPEC agreed during its Sept. 11 meeting in Vienna to pump an extra 500,000 barrels a day, starting Nov. 1. The same day, the Energy Department said U.S. crude supplies shrank by 7.01 million barrels last week, more than double the decline expected by a Bloomberg News survey of analysts.
``There's going to be a very substantial draw of crude oil in the fourth quarter,'' said Simon Wardell, energy research manager at Global Insight Inc. in London. ``OPEC's going to produce this oil in November. It's not going to reach the eastern seaboard until December or January.''
Via|Bloomberg|by Grant Smith and Angela Macdonald-Smith
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MEXICO: Mexican oil area braces for storm as calm returns to U.S. waters
Published | 23-Aug-2007Oil and gas operations in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico began returning to normal today, but work in Mexico's chief offshore oil producing area could be suspended for the rest of the week because of Hurricane Dean.
Among those companies bringing work back online in the U.S. Gulf were Shell Oil and contract drillers Noble Corp., Transocean and Pride International.
Shell said it expected to continue redeploying workers the rest of the week and was beginning to restore production of 30,000 barrels per day of oil and 70 million cubic feet of natural gas per day that were halted as the storm moved toward the Gulf last week. Noble began restaffing two semi-submersible rigs today and planned to begin returning workers to four additional semi-submersible rigs on Wednesday and Thursday, said Mark Burns, head of the company's U.S. Gulf of Mexico division.
Pride began redeploying workers, but was still in a "holding pattern" with respect to when its rigs would return to normal operation, said Christie Kaluza, a company spokeswoman. The company was still monitoring the storm for potential impact, she said.
Transocean, the world's largest offshore driller, also began returning workers to offshore rigs today and hoped to return the units to full operation as early as tonight, company spokesman Guy Cantwell said.
The moves came as it became clear that Hurricane Dean posed little threat to oil and gas operations in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico.
Yet Mexico's energy industry was still bracing for the worst as Dean inched closer to the heart of its energy production in the Bay of Campeche.
Over the weekend, Mexico's state-owned oil company Pemex began evacuating more than 13,000 workers and sealing up 407 oil and natural gas wells in preparation for the storm.
As a result of those actions, Mexico will lose out on production of about 2.6 million barrels of crude oil daily until Friday, Mexican President Felipe Calderon said today, according to a report by Bloomberg.
"This has an economic impact," Calderon said at news conference after a two-day summit with President Bush and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper in Montebello, Quebec.
Among those companies bringing work back online in the U.S. Gulf were Shell Oil and contract drillers Noble Corp., Transocean and Pride International.
Shell said it expected to continue redeploying workers the rest of the week and was beginning to restore production of 30,000 barrels per day of oil and 70 million cubic feet of natural gas per day that were halted as the storm moved toward the Gulf last week. Noble began restaffing two semi-submersible rigs today and planned to begin returning workers to four additional semi-submersible rigs on Wednesday and Thursday, said Mark Burns, head of the company's U.S. Gulf of Mexico division.
Pride began redeploying workers, but was still in a "holding pattern" with respect to when its rigs would return to normal operation, said Christie Kaluza, a company spokeswoman. The company was still monitoring the storm for potential impact, she said.
Transocean, the world's largest offshore driller, also began returning workers to offshore rigs today and hoped to return the units to full operation as early as tonight, company spokesman Guy Cantwell said.
The moves came as it became clear that Hurricane Dean posed little threat to oil and gas operations in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico.
Yet Mexico's energy industry was still bracing for the worst as Dean inched closer to the heart of its energy production in the Bay of Campeche.Over the weekend, Mexico's state-owned oil company Pemex began evacuating more than 13,000 workers and sealing up 407 oil and natural gas wells in preparation for the storm.
As a result of those actions, Mexico will lose out on production of about 2.6 million barrels of crude oil daily until Friday, Mexican President Felipe Calderon said today, according to a report by Bloomberg.
"This has an economic impact," Calderon said at news conference after a two-day summit with President Bush and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper in Montebello, Quebec.
Via: Chron
GULF OF MEXICO: GoM storms force oilfield evacuations
Published | 17-Aug-2007Oil companies in the Gulf of Mexico had by Thursday night U.K. time evacuated 13 platforms and five drill rigs, as Hurricane Dean builds in strength in the wake of Tropical Storm Erin.
While, Erin forced the shut-in of some oil and gas wells, the threat of Dean forced the evacuation of 1.6 percent of the 834 platforms and five percent of the 100 rigs in the Gulf of Mexico, according to a survey by the U.S. Minerals Management Service.
Just 2,563 barrels per day of the Gulf’s 1.3 million bpd of oil production has been shut in. Some 10.5 million cubic feet per day of gas of the Gulf’s 7.7 bcm/d is hemmed in.
During Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, the shut-in valves functioned 100 percent of the time, the MMS reported.
While, Erin forced the shut-in of some oil and gas wells, the threat of Dean forced the evacuation of 1.6 percent of the 834 platforms and five percent of the 100 rigs in the Gulf of Mexico, according to a survey by the U.S. Minerals Management Service.
Just 2,563 barrels per day of the Gulf’s 1.3 million bpd of oil production has been shut in. Some 10.5 million cubic feet per day of gas of the Gulf’s 7.7 bcm/d is hemmed in.During Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, the shut-in valves functioned 100 percent of the time, the MMS reported.
Via: Scandinavian Oil & Gas
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