Gulf Coast and Gulf of Mexico gas production rose only slightly Thursday, moving up about 13 MMcf/d to 5,161 MMcf/d, according to gas nominations into the region’s pipelines, Golden, CO-based Bentek Energy reported. Bentek, which collects its information from official pipeline company bulletin boards, said a total of 8,660 MMcf/d of gas production remains shut in onshore and offshore based on a comparison with the amount of gas scheduled to flow on Aug. 26 prior to Hurricane Katrina.

Bentek said about 8,066 MMcf/d of gas production was shut in offshore and onshore Louisiana Thursday, while only about 594 MMcf/d was still shut in offshore and onshore Texas. On Wednesday, the Minerals Management Service (MMS) reported that 8,027 MMcf/d of offshore production was still shut in based on reports from 76 producers (see Daily GPI, Sept. 29).

Little has changed for Louisiana pipeline operators, according to Bentek’s data. Scheduled production flows into receipt points on Tennessee Gas onshore and offshore Louisiana still stand at only 36 MMcf/d, meaning more than 1.9 Bcf/d remains shut in. The shut in totals have barely moved on the other major pipelines: Southern Natural (876 MMcf/d), Transco (894), Destin (590), Sea Robin (385), Florida Gas (93), Trunkline (301), Texas Eastern (416), Mississippi Canyon (511), Columbia Gulf (335), Garden Banks (421), Gulf South (170), High Island (270), Texas Gas (101), Stingray (183), Nautilus (155), Chandeleur (101), Sabine (40), Gulfstream (30) and Tetco’s Venice Lateral (219).

Bentek said based on scheduled gas flows on the region’s pipelines, cumulative production shut ins since Aug. 26 stand at 200.5 Bcf. Damage from Hurricane Ivan last year caused only 174 Bcf to be shut in from October through March.

An analyst with Global Insight predicted on Wednesday that cumulative shut ins both offshore (MMS data) and onshore could rise to as much as 500 Bcf by the end of the year, averaging 3 Bcf/d in the fourth quarter given a huge amount of damage to platforms, rigs, processing plants, pipelines and operations in the region from the hurricanes (see Daily GPI, Sept. 29). Consulting firm Energy and Environmental Analysis is predicting that 402 Bcf of cumulative offshore production will be shut in by next March (see Daily GPI, Sept. 29).

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