Posts Tagged ‘Hurricane Gustav’

NEW YORK - Crude oil fell yesterday as Royal Dutch Shell PLC and ConocoPhillips said Hurricane Gustav caused no damage to platforms in the Gulf of Mexico.

Royal Dutch Shell Plc, Total SA, ConocoPhillips and Valero Energy Corp. are among oil and gas producers, and refiners that have started initial inspections of facilities.

A spokesman for Royal Dutch Shell PLC said the company would get workers back onto its Mars and Ursa platforms as early as Wednesday to decide when to resume production. Pipelines to shore also need to be tested.

Some, like Shell, made huge reinvestments in the community, even buying homes for employees in nearby towns as a way of luring them back to work in the area.

NEW YORK, Sept 2 (Reuters) - Shell Oil said on Tuesday it was hoping to ramp up production soon at its Gulf Coast refineries in the wake of Hurricane Gustav, but at least one of them needs power and repairs before it can restart.

Shell plans to begin limited redeployments of workers to the eastern and western areas out of Hurricane Gustav's path in the Gulf of Mexico on Tuesday, if weather permits.

Shell to Close Capline Crude Pipeline as Gustav Nears (Update1) 

By Christian Schmollinger and Nesa Subrahmaniyan

Sept. 1 (Bloomberg) — Royal Dutch Shell Plc plans to close its Capline crude oil pipeline system today because of dwindling supplies from fields shut as Hurricane Gustav approaches, the company said in a statement.

Capline runs 650 miles from St. James, Louisiana, to Patoka, Illinois, and has the capacity to transport 1.2 million barrels of oil a day. Shell’s Houma, Louisiana-to-Houston oil pipeline has already ceased operations. Other onshore pipelines and tank farms have closed, the company said. read more

Motiva Enterprises LLC, a Houston-based joint venture of Royal Dutch Shell Plc and Saudi Arabia's state oil company, said it shut its Norco, Louisiana, plant, which can process 236,400 barrels a day.

Royal Dutch Shell said about 10 per cent of its stations were out of fuel as of Saturday morning in New Orleans, Baton Rouge and surrounding areas. It would continue delivering petrol to keep stations open as long as possible, but cautioned that its employees and operators would need to be evacuated.

Royal Dutch Shell, BP and other oil companies wrapped up evacuations and shut down production Saturday as an intensifying Hurricane Gustav churned toward the petroleum-rich waters of the Gulf of Mexico.

Shell and BP evacuated staff from rigs, while ExxonMobil and other operators activated contingency plans to cease operations on offshore facilities that account for a quarter of US crude oil production and 15% of natural gas output.

Royal Dutch Shell and ConocoPhillips led the majors in evacuating personnel and ceasing production.

BP, ConocoPhillips, Shell and Transocean, a large drilling contractor, have begun evacuating hundreds of workers from rigs and production platforms in deep waters of the Gulf.

Few companies are watching Gustav more closely than Royal Dutch Shell. About 80 percent of Shell's U.S. oil and natural-gas production comes from the Gulf of Mexico, where it's the top oil producer.

Shell flew 400 workers onshore Wednesday. The company has a staff of 1,300 workers in the Gulf. All workers are expected to be onshore by Saturday.

Aug. 28 (Bloomberg) -- Royal Dutch Shell Plc, Europe's biggest oil company, said it has evacuated about 400 workers from its oil and natural-gas platforms in the Gulf of Mexico because of Tropical Storm Gustav.