Shell resumes some work in the Gulf of Mexico after Ida
Anglo-Dutch major Shell said August 30 that a floating production unit in the Gulf of Mexico had returned to service after a brief pause due to Hurricane Ida.
Shell announced after US markets closed that it was still monitoring the impact of Ida, conducting flyovers of its assets situated in the Gulf of Mexico. It said it was able to return the floating production storage and offloading vessel Turritella to production.
|
Advertisement: The National Gas Company of Trinidad and Tobago Limited (NGC) NGC’s HSSE strategy is reflective and supportive of the organisational vision to become a leader in the global energy business. |
“All other assets remain shut in and fully evacuated at this time,” the company said.
Shell acquired Turritella in 2017. It has a design capacity of approximately 60,000 barrels of oil/day of oil and 15mn ft3/day of natural gas.
The company, along with most of its peers, started pulling staff and securing installations on August 26, ahead of Ida’s landfall August 29 as a category 4 hurricane.
As of August 30, the federal government estimated that all 11 stationary rigs, 51% of the mobile rigs and 47% of the dynamically-positioned rigs in the Gulf of Mexico remain evacuated.
Shell was an early mover. BP said it was still assessing possible damage to its offshore facilities.
“BP personnel will remain evacuated and production shut-in until we have confirmation that our platforms are able to operate safely, and pipeline companies have confirmed the operability of offshore pipelines,” the company said.
Nearly all of the offshore oil and gas production in the US territorial waters of the Gulf of Mexican remains offline.
Ida is now a tropical depression, but is forecast to bring heavy rains to parts of the Ohio River valley.