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Over a quarter of U.S. oil production capacity in the Gulf of Mexico remained offline after hurricane Rafael weakened to a tropical storm that the U.S. National Hurricane Center expects to move on south and southwest this week.
As of Sunday, over 480,000 bpd in oil production capacity and 310 million cu ft of natural gas were shut in, data from the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement showed. These represented 27.59% of total production capacity for crude oil and 16.67% of natural gas production capacity, the BSEE said.
“After the tropical storm has passed, facilities will be inspected,” the BSEE said in its update. “Once all standard checks have been completed, production from undamaged facilities will be brought back online immediately.”
Meanwhile, however, at least one company has started restoring production already. Reuters reported that Chevron had started returning evacuated personnel to its Gulf platforms and bring back production at the six production facilities.
“We will continue to closely monitor the system,” the company said.
Rafael formed earlier this month and last week strengthened into a hurricane, prompting concern about Gulf of Mexico oil and gas production. Computer modelling suggested that around 4 million barrels daily in oil production capacity could be affected by the storm if it remained a hurricane.
So far this season, the U.S. energy industry has suffered the worst disruption from Hurricane Francine, which shut in about 42% of oil production and 52% of natural gas production in the Gulf. The energy analytics firm’s models suggest Rafael could become the second most disruptive storm for the year if the strength projections turn out to be right.
Rafael was the 17th named storm this Atlantic hurricane season and the tenth one since September 24. Earlier in the year, the Energy Information Administration predicted up to 25 named storms for the season, warning that would wreak more havoc on the American oil and gas industry than ever before. The grim prediction has turned out wrong.
