By Sabrina Valle
HOUSTON (Reuters) -BP Plc and Chevron Corp on Monday said they have shut-in production at offshore oil platforms in the Gulf of Mexico, as Hurricane Ian bore down on the top U.S. offshore production region.
The storm was in the Caribbean and forecast to become a major hurricane within two days. It was packing 85 mile per hour (135 kph) winds and expected to rapidly intensify as it crosses the Gulf’s warm waters, the National Hurricane Center said.
The storm is the first this year to disrupt oil and gas production in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico, which accounts for about 15% of the nation’s crude oil and 5% of dry natural gas production.
Occidental Petroleum also said it was implementing protocols “designed to safeguard the environment and protect the safety and health of our personnel and the communities where we operate.” A spokesperson declined further comment.
BP has evacuated personnel from its 130,000 barrels of oil per day (bpd) Na Kika, and from its 250,000 bpd Thunder Horse platform, the company said. The two also produce 550 million cubic feet per day (mmcf/d) and 200 mmcf/d of natural gas, respectively.
“We will continue to monitor weather conditions closely to determine next steps,” BP said in a statement.
Chevron has begun removing all personnel from its Petronius and Blind Faith platforms and shutting-in their output, the company said. The two account for about 105,000 bpd of oil production and 90 million cubic feet per day of gas output.
Other Chevron-operated Gulf of Mexico assets remain at normal levels, a spokesperson said.
Shell Plc said it is closely monitoring the storm’s track and there was no impact to its Gulf operations.
(Reporting by Sabrina Valle; Additional reporting by Arathy Somasekhar; Editing by Bill Berkrot and Toby Chopra)
