Daily status report on the energy industry in the US Gulf

 

-- ExxonMobil on Oct 21 acknowledged some of its service stations in central and southern Florida may run out of gasoline ahead of Hurricane Wilma and said it was adding eight tanker trucks to its fleet supplying gasoline to the region to help boost supplies. Four of the eight additional tankers are from out of state, ExxonMobil said. Additional ExxonMobil drivers have been flown in from Chicago, California and Texas to assist in gasoline deliveries, the major said. The company's fleet size in the region is normally 28 trucks.

-- Senior Pemex executives early on Oct 21 ruled out taking immediate emergency measures in Mexico's main oil-producing area, the Sound of Campeche, but they maintained a state of alert on the progress of Hurricane Wilma, a source at the state company said.

-- Anadarko Petroleum the morning of Oct 21 evacuated 35 non-essential workers from the company's Gulf of Mexico operations as a precautionary measure ahead of Wilma. No production has been shut-in on the exploration and production company's sole USG platform. A staff of 15 have remained on the Marco Polo platform, a spokeswoman said.

-- The Louisiana Dept of Natural Resources on Oct 21 said operators of onshore and shallow-water wells in a 38-parish region had restored 63,289 b/d of oil production, or 31.2% of the region's output of roughly 203,139 b/d before Katrina and Rita hit the Gulf Coast. The agency put the amount of restored natural gas production at 876,300 Mcf/d, or 39.2% of the region's pre-storm total of 2.235 Bcf/d. The numbers on Oct 21 showed a continued, though slow, increase in both oil and gas production. DNR on on Oct 20 reported that producers had restored 62,803 b/d of oil production and 874,700 Mcf/d of gas production.

-- The US Minerals Management Service, in its daily production update in the wake of Katrina and Rita, and now Hurricane Wila, said crude and natural gas production shut-ins in the Gulf of Mexico reversed their slow pace of recovery and increased slightly on Oct 21. The agency said oil shut-ins in the Gulf as of 11:30 a.m. CDT Oct 21 were 986,805 b/d, or 65.787% of normal production of 1.5-mil b/d. That compares with 967,734 b/d, or 64.52%, on Oct 20. Gas shut-ins rose to 5.337 Bcf/d, or 53.37% of typical production of 10 Bcf/d. On Oct 20, shut-ins were 5.196 Bcf/d, or 51.96 Bcf/d. MMS also said the cumulative oil production shut in since Aug 26 ahead of Katrina is now 64,547,816 bbl, equivalent to 11.79% of yearly US Gulf output of roughly 547.5-mil bbl. Cumulative gas shut-ins of 326.521 Bcf is equivalent to about 8.946% of yearly Gulf output of some 3.65 Tcf.

-- The following refineries are down in the wake of Rita: ConocoPhillips: Lake Charles, Louisiana, (239,000 b/d), power restored, mid-October restart; BP: Texas City, Texas, (446,500 b/d), restart within a month, but may not produce until end of October due to regulatory scrutiny, sources told Platts; Calcasieu: Lake Charles, (30,000 b/d), power restored.

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