The amount of Gulf of Mexico gas production shut in due to damage from Hurricane Ivan dropped sharply this week to about 743 MMcf/d on Thursday from 1.2 Bcf/d last Friday. However, Southern Natural Gas has reported that pipeline replacement work at Main Pass 298 will leave about 240 MMcf/d shut in for six to 12 months.

“Southern has determined that damage to its facilities east of Main Pass 298 from Hurricane Ivan is so extensive that the corrective action plan must include the complete replacement of about 13 miles of 24-[inch diameter] pipe from Main Pass 298 to a point east of Main Pass 293,” the company said in a bulletin board notice. “Primarily due to the long lead time required to acquire the pipe and have it coated, we expect that the earliest these facilities will be back in service is July 1, 2005.

“Also, additional damage assessment is required on the remaining five miles of pipe in this same segment. Should this assessment indicate that replacement is necessary on any or all of this section, then the above date could change. As indicated in previous postings, there are nine receipt points that are affected by the damage in this area of our system.” A company spokeswoman said those nine points represent most of the 300 MMcf/d of gas production that remains shut in upstream of Southern Natural. About 50-60 MMcf/d remains shut in upstream of Southern’s South Pass 60 facilities.

“We now believe that Southern’s facilities in the South Pass 60 area will be ready to accept receipts from the six receipt points in this part of its system by the end of February 2005,” the company said. “Return to service dates for the remainder of Southern’s facilities that were damaged by Hurricane Ivan cannot be estimated at this time. Those remaining facilities affect Southern’s ability to accept receipts from four receipt points.”

Tennessee Gas, El Paso’s other major Gulf Coast interstate pipeline system that was seriously damaged by Ivan, brought its Blue Water pipeline up late last week and said it expects to have the Bay Marchand gathering system and South Pass 77, 49 and 55 back up over the next few months. However, due to producer damage some of the facilities upstream of those locations could remain out of service for a longer period of time. For example, while the Viosca Knoll Gathering System at South Pass 55 is up and running today, it is not receiving about 220 MMcf/d of production because of damage to third-party production facilities.

A total of at least 308 MMcf/d behind Tennessee Gas remains shut-in. Production totals are estimated based on what was flowing prior to Hurricane Ivan. However, it is not known how much production actually would flow if all systems were completely repaired. For example, although 49 receipt points knocked out by the storm are flowing again on Southern Natural, those points account for only about 450 MMcf/d of production today compared to 520 MMcf/d prior to the storm.

The Minerals Management Service said on Thursday that based on reports from 18 companies, a total of nine previously manned platforms and one rig remain evacuated and 742.88 MMcf/d of gas production and 212,407 bbl/d of oil production remains shut in due to damage from Ivan. Cumulative deferred production from the storm now totals 27.6 million bbl of oil and 112.5 Bcf of natural gas.

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