Unclear on the exact path of Hurricane Frances late Friday, some major Gulf of Mexico (GOM) producers began removing personnel and shutting in eastern Gulf production as a precaution.

The storm was expected to hit the southeastern coast of Florida on Saturday, then cross the peninsula on a diagonal northwestern course, according to the National Hurricane Center (NHC). The NHC’s forecast map on Friday predicted that while the eye of the storm would remain over land, crossing into southwestern Georgia and Alabama, some of tropical storm force winds from the broad storm could be felt over the eastern Gulf by Sunday and Monday.

The NHC said late Friday afternoon that a hurricane warning was in effect for the East Coast of Florida from Florida City northward to Flagler Beach, including Lake Okeechobee. Frances was moving toward the west/northwest near 8 mph, but was expected to decrease in forward speed between Friday and Saturday. The good news was that wind speeds had decreased to 115 mph after crossing the Bahamas from their previous 145 mph level, knocking the storm back from a Category 4 to a Category 3 on the Saffir-Simpson scale. As of 5 p.m. (EDT) Friday, Frances was 90 miles southeast of Freeport Grand Bahama Island and 200 miles east/southeast of the Florida Lower East Coast.

As a precautionary measure, Shell Exploration & Production Co. (SEPCo) began to evacuate non-essential personnel Thursday from a number of locations in the Gulf, including: Ram-Powell; Ursa; Mars; Cognac; and West Delta 143. In addition, non-essential personnel were being evacuated from the Transocean Drilling Rig Nautilus, which is drilling a well for SEPCo in the Lloyd Ridge area of the Gulf. SEPCo anticipated that 175 nonessential personnel were evacuated Thursday.

On Thursday night, SEPCo took additional action. “Crosby subsea wells (Ursa platform tie-back) were shut-in late Thursday evening,” the company said. Total gross volumes shut in at Crosby were 13,900 b/d of crude and 20 MMcf/d of natural gas. The company assured that production at other locations had not been impacted at that time.

Additional personnel evacuations from the Gulf of Mexico were expected to take place on Friday, but were expected to be less significant than previously forecast given the weakening of the hurricane and its projected path, SEPCo said. While SEPCo did not waste any time removing eastern Gulf personnel, a number of other major Gulf producers were taking a wait-and-see approach.

“We are watching the storm closely and positioning our people and equipment so that we can take the proper action should it become necessary,” said BP spokeswoman Ayana McIntosh-Lee. She noted that no evacuations or shut-ins had taken place so far.

Charlotte Howard said ExxonMobil had not implemented any shut-ins or evacuations. “We have had no impact to production operations, nor are we evacuating workers. Basically we are just monitoring the storm closely as far as our Mobile Bay [AL] operations. That’s about as far East as we go.”

Kerr-McGee’s John Christiansen also said the company was monitoring the storm, but had not evacuated personnel nor shut in production. He noted that the changing forecasts for Frances have made producers watch the storm a lot closer.

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