Hurricane Isaias left most US Gulf of Mexico oil output shut on Saturday, even as Shell and Chevron began sending crews back. Experts expect little immediate effect on already high oil prices unless power outages affect refineries, and the Energy Department authorized an emergency crude exchange from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.
About 69% of oil output and 57% of natural gas production in the US Gulf of Mexico remained shut on Saturday, slightly down from Friday, the Marine Minerals Administration said. Producers have started to return, but the storm has also killed people and cut power across the Southeast.
Gulf platforms stay evacuated
Before the storm arrived, workers were evacuated from more than 100 oil and gas platforms in the Gulf. On Friday, the agency said evacuations had taken place at 129 of the 371 manned platforms, halting about 70 per cent of daily oil production.
On Saturday, 113 production platforms representing 30% of the total remained evacuated, according to the agency. Shell said it was beginning to redeploy personnel to its Mars, Olympus, Ursa, Vito and Appomattox assets, while Chevron was advancing efforts to redeploy staff and restore full production.
Little immediate effect on oil prices expected
Experts expect little immediate effect on already high oil prices, unless hurricane power outages affect oil refineries.
The US Energy Department said on Saturday it authorized an emergency exchange of up to 4 million barrels of crude oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to address supply disruptions due to the hurricane.
Deaths and outages across the Southeast
The Financial Times reported at least two deaths and more than 800,000 customers without power. A Reuters report put the toll at four deaths and about 670,000 residents without power in Florida, Alabama, Georgia and Mississippi.
By midday Saturday, about 420,000 customers in Florida, 190,000 in Alabama, 43,000 in Georgia and 17,000 in Mississippi had no power, according to PowerOutage.us.
Pensacola airport, Florida's 10th largest, was damaged by the storm and is closed to commercial flights until further notice.
Sources: Financial Times, Investing.com (Reuters)
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