Gas prices fell about 20 cents last week at most points East of the Rockies despite the loss of about 8 Bcf of gas production because of shut ins in the Gulf of Mexico due to Hurricane Claudette. While about 2.7 Bcf/d of supply was knocked out on Tuesday when the hurricane made landfall on the central Gulf Coast of Texas near Matagorda Bay, nearly all of the supply was back on stream by Friday.

From Friday July 11 through Thursday July 17, the MMS pegged shut-in production at approximately 8.043 Bcf, which is equivalent to 0.158% of the 5.1 Tcf yearly production of gas in the Gulf. Over the same period, the MMS said Claudette shut-in 1,265,474 bbls of oil, which is equivalent to 0.217% of the 584 million barrel yearly production of oil in the Gulf. The MMS said Friday that all shut in production was back online, confirming the reports of numerous producers contacted by NGI.

The first hurricane of the season in the Atlantic had storm watchers butting heads over forecasts. Weather 2000, a New York City-based consulting firm, classified the National Hurricane Center’s early Tuesday projection that Claudette would reach landfall late Tuesday night as a tragedy.

“Claudette’s Eye is already striking/crossing land as we speak (mid-morning Tuesday),” Weather 2000 exclaimed. “Perhaps it was more wishful thinking that Claudette would turn to the South (to partially salvage original model projections), but this is a public safety debacle. For the Government (the only body that can officially declare advisories) to mis-forecast what time a Hurricane’s Eye will cross land, by 8 hours on the same day, is a calamity.”

The storm swept through the offshore Texas production area causing many oil and natural gas producers to evacuate platforms and shut down supply (see NGI, July 14). After revising its shut in figures upward on Wednesday for Monday and Tuesday, the MMS found that almost 1.1 Bcf of gas and 221,766 barrels of oil was shut in on Monday. For Tuesday, the MMS reported a total of 287 platforms and 47 rigs were evacuated and 2.697 Bcf of gas and 418,164 barrels of oil was shut in due to the storm. As production slowly returned, Wednesday saw almost 2.2 Bcf and 200,409 barrels shut in, and by Thursday gas shut-ins were down to 707 MMcf.

During the week, a substantial amount of production curtailments were reported upstream of Transcontinental Gas Pipeline, which said it lost about 1 Bcf/d of supply. Texas Eastern said producers had cut about 400 MMcf/d of supply from its 5.9 Bcf/d system. A spokeswoman for Florida Gas Transmission said about 200 MMcf/d had been trimmed on its 2.1 Bcf/d system. And NGPL reported that a small amount of offshore supply was cut behind its 5.7 Bcf/d pipeline. Sea Robin lost about 200 MMcf/d, and force majeures were called on the MOPS, HIOS and UTOS offshore pipeline systems.

Deliveries into all the major pipelines in the area were affected. Allocations were expected to end Wednesday morning.

“Cash prices were down at a lot of points this morning for a while, but there are some significant production cuts here and there,” said a Houston-based producer on Tuesday. “We are scrambling to move people to new receipt points to keep them up from first-of-the-month deals. If you own a bigger house than we do, it’s much worse. It’s a very busy day. Pipelines are cutting people right and left. Transco, NGPL, Tennessee in Zone 0, Tetco in South Texas, HIOS, UTOS, MOPs are all being hit. They don’t give you any helpful suggestions either; they just cut you. You have to figure out the helpful suggestion part yourself,” he said.

ChevronTexaco said on Wednesday that “more than 90% of our workers are onsite and working to restore production.” Midweek, the company still had approximately 60,000 b/d of oil and 225 MMcf/d of operated gas shut in.

El Paso had 65 MMcfe shut in on Tuesday and as of Wednesday morning, the company had about 30 MMcfe shut in.

Shell said Wednesday afternoon that helicopter flights had resumed Tuesday out of Morgan City, LA. with all personnel expected to be back on facilities by the end of the Wednesday.

A spokeswoman for Kerr-McGee said it had approximately 69,000 boe shut in during Monday and again on Tuesday, but most of that is back online now, while Anadarko said on Wednesday that it had only restarted two out of the 15 platforms that were shut in. On Thursday, the company restarted the remaining 13.

Despite the shut ins and devastation wrought on land, however, there was no damage to production or pipeline facilities offshore, MMS spokesman Barney Congdon said on Friday. Claudette’s fury paled in comparison to last fall’s tag-team of Category 4 Lili and Tropical Storm Isidore, which combined over a month’s time to knock out more than 14.4 million bbl of oil and 90 Bcf of gas (see NGI, Oct. 21, 2002).

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