Some producers this week began a fresh round of shut-ins and evacuations of their oil and gas assets in the Gulf of Mexico (GOM) in preparation for Tropical Storm Helene, just two weeks after recovering from Hurricane Francine.
Equinor said it had evacuated its Titan platform Tuesday morning, while BP said on Monday that it had begun suspending operations at its Na Kika and Thunder Horse platforms and curtailed output at the Argos and Atlantis projects. It also removed non-essential staff from the Mad Dog production facility.
Shell announced that it halted operations at its Stones asset and curtailed production at Appomattox field. They also evacuated non-essential personnel from assets in the Mars Corridor and planned to pause some drilling operations. Chevron began removing all personnel from the Blind Faith and Petronius platforms and was shutting them. They were also removing non-essential staff from four other Chevron-operated projects although production for those would remain at normal levels.
Helene is set to become a major hurricane, with wind speeds greater than 110 miles per hour, when it approaches the northeastern Gulf and makes landfall in Florida on Thursday (see map below), according to the National Hurricane Center. The storm has already shut about 16% of crude oil production and 11% of gas output in the GOM, the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement said in an update.
