Workers returning to offshore oil and gas facilities across the Gulf of Mexico (GOM) Friday were finding little or no damage as a result of Hurricane Isaac, according to several major GOM producers.

BP plc said Friday that it was beginning to redeploy offshore personnel to its GOM production platforms and drilling rigs, and mobile drilling rigs, which had been moved out of Isaac’s path, were returning to their locations. “While aerial surveys of our offshore facilities did not identify any significant damage, crews will perform closer inspections onsite,” BP said. “Once deemed safe, facilities will be restarted and oil and natural gas production will recommence in coming days.” BP was inspecting its onshore facilities in Louisiana and Mississippi and said operations at certain sites could resume as early as Friday.

Anadarko Petroleum Corp. began restaffing all of its operated, producing facilities in the eastern and central GOM Friday morning. On Thursday Anadarko reported that remote monitoring capabilities indicated that all of its facilities in the GOM, including the natural gas Independence Hub, were intact (see Daily GPI, Aug. 31). Production was expected to restart at Anadarko facilities after on-site inspections and as third-party-operated pipelines and infrastructure permit.

Shell began post mortem inspections and damage assessments of its GOM facilities on Thursday. “The outcome of these assessments will determine the timeline for a return to full operations,” Shell said. Chevron began deploying personnel to its onshore and offshore facilities Thursday. In an operational update posted Friday, Chevron subsidiary Sabine Pipe Line LLC said operational capabilities on its natural gas pipeline in Erath, LA, and at the Henry Hub were unaffected by Isaac.

While energy infrastructure was shut down as a precaution as Isaac approached the GOM, it “appears not have suffered lasting damage” from Isaac, according to RBN Energy.

Based on data from offshore operator reports submitted as of 11:30 a.m. CDT Friday the Bureau of Safety Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) estimated that about 68.34% (3.075 Bcf/d) of the current daily natural gas production, and 94.81% (1.308 million b/d) of daily oil output in the GOM was shut-in. Those numbers were down slightly from Thursday, when BSEE reported 75.52% (3.264 Bcf/d)of gas production and 94.99% (1.311 million b/d)of oil production was shut-in.

Personnel had been evacuated from 499 of the 596 manned production platforms, equivalent to 83.7% of the total platforms in the GOM. Personnel remained evacuated from 48 of the 76 rigs, BSEE said. On Thursday BSEE had reported 509 production platforms and 50 rigs were evacuated.

IHS Chemical said Isaac forced the shut-in of about 20 natural gas processing plants larger than 100 MMcf/d, along with declarations of force majeure by about 10 natural gas pipelines and restrictions on numerous others. Nearly 60% of the petrochemical and fluid catalytic cracking facilities in the coastal regions of Louisiana and Mississippi were also shut down as Isaac approached, IHS said.

Isaac left more than 769,000 Energy customers in Louisiana and Mississippi without electricity, the New Orleans-based utility said Thursday, and that number was closer to a million overall in the region.

The Department of Energy (DOE) announced Friday that it had agreed to lend 1 million barrels of sweet crude oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve’s (SPR) Bayou Choctaw site in Louisiana to Marathon Petroleum Co. “to address the short term impact on the company’s refining capacity caused by Hurricane Isaac, which is resulting in limited crude oil shortages.” The loan “is distinct from a release from the SPR,” and Marathon has agreed to return an equal amount of similar quality oil, plus “premium barrels, which is similar to interest,” within three months, DOE said.

Isaac, which had been a hurricane when it reached the Gulf coast (see Daily GPI, Aug. 29), was a tropical depression by Friday morning. The downgraded system was bringing heavy rain and the threat of flash flooding to the middle Mississippi River Valley, according to the National Hurricane Center (NHC).

Kirk, which became the season’s fifth Atlantic hurricane on Thursday, was located about 825 miles east of Bermuda on Friday and was moving north at 13 mph over the open Atlantic. Kirk was a Category Two hurricane packing maximum sustained winds near 105 mph, but it was expected to begin weakening Friday night and was forecast to steer well away from the North American coast. And NHC was tracking Tropical Storm Leslie, which was following in Kirk’s wake about 845 miles east of the Leeward Islands. Leslie had maximum sustained winds of 65 mph and was expected move slowly to the northwest for several days, approaching Bermuda by the Wednesday or Thursday, NHC said.

©Copyright 2012Intelligence Press Inc. All rights reserved. The preceding news reportmay not be republished or redistributed, in whole or in part, in anyform, without prior written consent of Intelligence Press, Inc.