Shell prepares to shut down Gulf of Mexico platforms in anticipation of tropical storms

Shell is preparing to shut down oil and gas production at two of its platforms in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico, days after resuming normal operations at other facilities in the region that were shut before Hurricane Francine.

The supermajor said Sunday it was monitoring Tropical Disturbance 35 for possible impacts to its assets and operations in the Gulf of Mexico.

As a precaution, Shell is preparing to shut down production at the Stones and Appomattox platforms and has begun evacuating non-essential personnel from its assets in the Mars Corridor.

“We are safely suspending some of our drilling operations and currently have no further impacts to our production in the Gulf of Mexico,” Shell said in an initial update on Disturbance 35, which has a 50% chance of becoming a tropical storm, according to the U.S. National Hurricane Center.

Earlier this month, Shell shut down production at its Perdido, Auger and Enchilada/Salsa sites due to Hurricane Francine, which made landfall in Louisiana in early September. At its Whale site, which is not expected to start operations until later this year, Shell has safely suspended drilling operations.

On September 11, when Francine hit the Louisiana coast, as many as 46 percent of manned production platforms in the Gulf of Mexico were evacuated, affecting 40 percent of crude oil production. Nearly half of the Gulf of Mexico’s natural gas production was also shut down.

Following Francine’s death, Shell increased production at Appomattox, Mars, Vito, Ursa and Olympus as downstream issues were resolved.

Refineries that had to scale back operations before Hurricane Francine hit, including Shell’s in Norco and Exxon’s in Baton Rouge, began reopening on September 13.

Shell’s Norco and Geismar facilities were in the process of resuming normal operations. During the storm, the Norco hydrocracker was shut down due to a brief power outage, but sustained no damage. Shell kept the Norco hydrocracker shut down in preparation for a planned routine turnaround, which has now been brought forward.

By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com

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