Oil companies brace for possible U.S. Gulf storm
Major oil and gas producers in the Gulf of Mexico on Thursday shut down offshore platforms and evacuated workers ahead of a storm brewing offshore that was expected to bring flooding to Louisiana over the weekend.
The Miami-based National Hurricane Center said on Thursday evening that the system had formed into Tropical Depression 13 and was expected to become a tropical storm by the time it crosses the central Louisiana coast late Saturday.
The storm was moving through a heavy concentration of oil and gas platforms off the Louisiana coast and could potentially crimp supplies from the Gulf, which accounts for about 30 percent of U.S. oil and 12 percent of its gas.
So far only a fraction of Gulf output was shut as of Thursday-- 5.7 percent of oil supply and 2.4 percent of gas supply, according to the U.S. government.
Those percentages will likely rise significantly in coming days as the storm develops.
The tropical depression -- which would be named Lee if it reaches tropical storm status -- could spur torrential rains and coastal flooding from the Florida Panhandle to Texas-Louisiana border, NHC Director Bill Read said.
Major offshore producers like Royal Dutch Shell (RDSa.L), Exxon Mobil Corp (XOM.N) and BP Plc (BP.L) (BP.N) began precautionary shut-downs as they evacuated workers from the path of the looming storm.
Chevron Corp (CVX.N) and Apache Corp (APA.N) said on Thursday they were evacuating workers not essential to production, such as cooks and cleaning staff, but nether reported any production impacts.
Lee would be the 12th named storm of the busy 2011 Atlantic hurricane season.
State oil monopoly Pemex PEMEX.UL said none of its installations in the far west Gulf were affected by the weather system, so no evacuations were planned and the three main oil exporting ports on Mexico's Gulf coast remained open on Thursday morning.
BP is the biggest oil producer in the Gulf, followed by Royal Dutch Shell, Chevron and Anadarko.
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