BSEE says 19.5 pct of GoM Oil Output Affected by Storm. BP Restarts Atlantis Platform
The tropical depression Nine that has forced some U.S. Gulf of Mexico oil and gas operators to evacuate personnel and shut production, now has a new name and a new status. It is now called Hermine, and it is no longer a tropical depression but a tropical storm.
According to the latest report by the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) approximately 19.52 percent of the current oil production in the Gulf of Mexico has been shut-in. This means that some platforms have resumed production as the previous status showed that 22% of oil production had been shut-in.
It is also estimated that approximately 10.59 percent of the natural gas production in the Gulf of Mexico has been shut-in.
Ten platforms and one rig have been evacuated. Five dynamically positioned rigs have moved away from the storm’s path.
To remind, Offshore Energy Today earlier this week reported that Shell had evacuated personnel from some of Gulf of Mexico assets.
In an update on Wednesday afternoon, Shell said it was returning personnel to its offshore assets in the Gulf of Mexico “as forecasts continue to show Tropical Depression 9 moving away from our operations.”
“Tropical Depression 9 did not affect production at any Shell-operated assets. We are in the process of safely resuming drilling operations that were suspended as a precautionary measure,” Shell said.
The Coulomb subsea field (100% owned by Shell) will remain shut in until the associated non-operated production hub, downstream oil and gas gathering systems and receipt points resume operations.
Also, British oil major BP has restarted production at its Atlantis platform. Atlantis’ production capacity is approximately 200,000 barrels of oil and 180 million cubic feet of gas per day.
BP has shut-in production at the Thunder Horse and the Na Kika platforms. BP’s other offshore production platform in the deepwater Gulf, Mad Dog, has remained in production.
BP said Wednesday it would continue to monitor offshore conditions to determine when conditions are safe to redeploy non-essential personnel and resume normal operations.
Source: www.offshoreenergytoday.com
