The thunderstorm formerly known as Hurricane Gordon moved toofar east too fast then slowed too much too soon to have much impacton the key U.S. oil and gas production areas off the Gulf ofMexico. By Monday afternoon, the evacuated offshore workers hadbeen returned to their rigs and power lost in Florida communitieshad been restored.

Pipeline operators working off of the coasts of Louisiana andAlabama, where the storm had been tracking last week, reported fewproblems with the storm, and in fact, only a couple of operatorsreported any impact at all. Transco and Texas Gas pipelines, bothunits of Williams Co., Texas Eastern, Duke Energy, ColumbiaEnergy’s Gulf Transmission Unit and Coastal Corp.’s ANR pipelineall reported little or no impact from the storm.

However, many oil and gas companies evacuated workers Saturdayfrom drilling rigs and offshore production platforms before thestorm hit. The workers were already back out in the Gulf beforeMonday morning had arrived.

A Transco gas pipeline spokesman said yesterday that Gordon hadno effect on the company’s deliveries, but that it had slightlyimpacted receipts. Producers mainly in the Mobile Bay, AL area,served by a Transco lateral, curtailed about 40 to 100 MMcf/d ofgas production for less than a 24-hour period over the weekend.

“We actually began redeploying our folks (Sunday),” said Chevronspokesman Jeff Moore. “At one point during the weekend, we hadabout 40 MMcf/d of natural gas shut in, but we’re back to normaloperations now.” Chevron produces about 950 MMcf/d of gas and120,000 b/d of oil in the Gulf.

Nearly all of Chevron’s employees and contractors — 1,250 ofthe 1,700 — were evacuated as a precaution in the firstfull-scale evacuation this hurricane season. “It’s simply anexercise in logistics,” said Moore. “If you didn’t start evacuatingsoon enough, by the time the storm actually becomes a threat, it’stoo late to start. When (Gordon) was down in the southern Gulf ofMexico and we still weren’t sure where it was going to end up, webegan evacuating our personnel.”

Moore said that Chevron left “basically skeleton crews of 450employees” who manned platforms and kept operations going. “We wereconfident that had the storm taken a turn toward our area, we wouldhave been able to evacuate that remaining 450 in time.” Chevronalready had some experience this season with evacuation: inmid-August, some employees were evacuated during another summersoaker, Beryl, which hit northern Mexico.

By Sunday afternoon, the 275 workers evacuated by Shell Oil Co.had already been returned to the Gulf. Shell reported no loss inoil or gas production. Unocal Corp., which had evacuated about 320workers, operated with small crews over the weekend, but comeMonday morning full crews were going again. Exxon Mobil Corp.reported it never evacuated any workers and did not curtail itsproduction at all. The Gulf accounts for about one fourth of totalU.S. oil and gas production, with average daily gas productionabout 14 Bcf and oil production about 1.35 MMb/d.

Most of the damage, which was minimal and confined to downedtrees and mangled carports, was confined to Cedar Key. The FloridaEmergency Management Agency, which had set up evacuation sheltersin the Tampa Bay area, said some flooding still could occur fromstorm surges, but predicted no major problems.

High storm winds knocked out power to about 120,000 homesSunday, and Florida Power & Light crews worked throughoutSunday night to restore service to about 120,000 customers affectedby Gordon. By yesterday, only a few hundred were without power, andFPL expected everyone to be back in service by today. On Monday,children in six counties in Florida stayed home from school.

So far this year, the hurricane season has been mild. Last year,the Gulf of Mexico was hit twice, and it was threatened a thirdtime. However, two years ago, the Gulf had five storms, includingtropical storms Charley, Frances and Hermine, and Hurricanes Earland Georges. All of the 1998 storms disrupted Gulf production andtriggered evacuations.

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