BP, Total start detailed inspections of Katrina-related damage

Paris (Platts)--30Aug2005

BP hopes to board all of its US Gulf of Mexico platforms over the coming
days to carry out detailed inspections to its facilities following the passage
of Hurricane Katrina, the company said Tuesday.

Apart from damage to a mobile floating rig, the ENSCO 7500 which was not
on contract to BP, no other damage has been observed to its Mad Dog, Holstein,
NaKika, Marlin and Horn Mountain facilities, a company spokesman said.

"We have put small teams already on Thunder Horse, Mad Dog and Holstein
by helicopter to conduct more detailed inspections. We will expect to board
all of our platforms over the coming days to carry detailed inspections of the
facilities to look at any damage at all and we will also be inspecting the
pipelines we operate," the spokesman said.

"If we are ensured that they are okay, we will start coming back up to
normal production," he said.

BP's $1-bil Thunder Horse facility is the world's largest
semi-submersible production platform. The platform was found listing after
Hurricane Dennis swept through the Gulf earlier this summer and BP has
subsequently said the project is unlikely to meet its scheduled start-up in
the fourth quarter of this year.

Total, meanwhile, said it would send teams out to its facilities in the
Gulf of Mexico to inspect for damage following the passing of Hurricane
Katrina. "There should be a team going out there this morning," a company
spokesman said Tuesday.

The French energy giant evacuated all personnel at its oil and gas
facilities in the area on the weekend, shutting in 16,500 b/d of crude and
25mil cu ft/day of natural gas at its Matterhorn, located in Mississippi block
243, Virgo, located in Viosca Knoll 823 and Canyon Express pipeline system,
which carries gas from producing facilities to Williams's Canyone Station
platform some 60 miles offshore Mobile, Alabama.

Shell late Monday said an initial fly-over inspection of some of its
operations indicated "topside damage" to its Mars platform and that further
evaluations would be made Tuesday to assess the status of five more central
and western Gulf platforms owned by Shell.

Shell also said production staff would be deployed to restart power
systems and perform more detailed checks for damage to five of Shell's Gulf
platforms--Auger, Brutus, Enchilada, Cougar and Bullwinkle.

Sunday Shell shut in all of its Gulf of Mexico operations Sunday and
evacuated 983 personnel, resulting in total shut-in production of 420,000 b/d
of crude, and 1.345 Bcf/d of gas, the company estimated.

Katrina had shut in 1.375-mil b/d of US Gulf oil output, or almost 92%
of typical 1.5-mil b/d output. Damage to regional pipelines led at least one
refiner to request an allocation of crude from the 700-mil bbl US Strategic
Petroleum Reserve. Citgo late Monday said it had asked for 250,000-500,000 bbl
for its 320,000 b/d Lake Charles Louisiana plant due to a pipeline outage.

Oil prices rocketed to a record high at $70.80/bbl on the New York
Mercantile Exchange Monday but later fell back as Katrina lost strength.
Front-month light, sweet West Texas Intermediate crude futures for October
delivery opened at $67.40/bbl on Access Tuesday and traded at $67.95/bbl at
0631 GMT, up 75 cts/bbl from Monday's close.

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