Gulf of Mexico operators returning to normal ops after Harvey

Offshore oil and gas operators in the Gulf of Mexico have continued re-boarding their platforms following Tropical Storm Harvey with less than 2 percent platforms remaining evacuated and 7 percent of oil production shut-in. 

In its final activity statistics update issued on Monday, the U.S. Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) informed that oil and gas operators continued to assess their facilities and are required to submit damage reports to BSEE. To date, no damage reports have been received.

Based on the data from offshore operator reports submitted as of 11:30 CDT Monday, personnel remain evacuated from a total of 14 production platforms, which represents 1.97 percent of the 737 manned platforms in the Gulf of Mexico. This is a significant decrease compared to 30 evacuated platforms counted on Sunday.

As stated previously in the Sunday update, personnel have returned to all five of the previously evacuated non-dynamically positioned rigs while none of the 21 DP rigs currently operating in the Gulf moved off location out of the storm’s path.

From Gulf of Mexico operator reports, BSEE estimates that approximately 6.94 percent of the current oil production of 1,750,000 barrels of oil per day in the Gulf remains shut-in, which equates to 121.484 barrels of oil per day.

BSEE also estimates that about 8.05 percent of the natural gas production of 3,220 million cubic feet per day, or 259.19 million cubic feet per day, remains shut-in.