Page 21 - NorthAmOil Annual Review 2021

NorthAmOil SEPTEMBER NorthAmOil

Widespread flooding
is complicating restart
efforts.
Source: Reuters

their location to avoid being in the path of the What next?
storm. By September 2, these figures had fallen The US government joined refiners in stepping
to 31.6% of platforms and 54.6% of rigs still up efforts to ensure gasoline kept flowing in early
being evacuated, while only four dynamically September as downstream capacity in Louisiana
positioned rigs remained off their pre-storm remained offline.
location. The US Department of Energy (DoE)
Shell reported on September 2 that during announced on September 2 that it would sup-
an initial flyover, it had identified damage to its ply 1.5mn barrels of crude from the Strategic
West Delta-143 (WD-143) offshore facilities. Petroleum Reserve (SPR) to ExxonMobil’s
The super-major said it would send in personnel Baton Rouge refinery. This came after Presi-
to inspect the damage and assess its impact on dent Joe Biden directed the DoE to use all tools,
operations when it was safe to do so, not speci- including the SPR, to keep gasoline flowing, in
fying when this was likely to be. an effort to avoid shortages and price spikes.
The WD-143 facilities serve as the transfer The full impact of the storm on production
station for all production from Shell’s assets in and refining still remains unknown for now.
the Mars corridor in the Mississippi Canyon More updates from operators, as well as forth-
area of the Gulf to onshore crude terminals, the coming data from organisations such as the US
company noted. This suggests that the WD-143 Energy Information Administration (EIA), will Only around
outage could have an impact on when Shell is provide a clearer picture over the coming days
able to bring other assets in the area – the Mars, and weeks. half of the 2021
Olympus and Ursa platforms – back online. A potential worry for the industry, though, Atlantic hurricane
As of September 2, Shell had returned its Tur- is the fact that only around half of the 2021
ritella floating production, storage and offload- Atlantic hurricane season has passed at this season has
ing (FPSO) vessel to service, and said its Perdido point, and there could be more storms to
facility had not been affected by the storm. All come. A Colorado State University hurricane passed at this
of its other facilities remained shut in and fully researcher, Phil Klotzbach, told USA Today
evacuated, Shell said. that whereas on average there would usually point.
Chevron said on September 1 that its offshore be about six named storms up to August 31,
facilities appeared to be undamaged, and had including both tropical storms and hurricanes,
begun returning personnel offshore to verify there have already been 12 this year. And
this and restart operations. according to the National Oceanic and Atmos-
BP said on September 2 that, using flyovers pheric Administration (NOAA), the typical
for visual assessments, it had observed no obvi- peak of the season comes around September
ous major damage to its four Gulf platforms. 10, though no new storms are yet threatening
It would assess its infrastructure more closely the US in Ida’s aftermath.
when it was safe to do so. The company added The NOAA’s updated forecast from early
that it could not say how long this would take, August said 15-21 tropical storms would
and that production would remain shut in until form this season, of which 7-10 would be
it could confirm the condition of the platforms. hurricanes.™

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