Just when producers thought it was safe to head back into the waters of the Gulf of Mexico, Hurricane Lili appeared on the horizon ready to take another big bite out of Gulf gas production. Isidore forced 25 Bcf of gas to be shut in last week, according to the Minerals Management Service (MMS). It looks as though Lili could force a repeat of that situation this week, according to the latest reports from producers.

The MMS said gas production curtailments on Tuesday because of Lili rose to 5.5 Bcf/d from only 1.2 Bcf/d Monday. A total of 374,412 bbl/d of oil was reported as curtailed and 121 platforms and 42 rigs were evacuated throughout the Gulf of Mexico Tuesday, MMS said. Those numbers are expected to rise substantially on Wednesday as Lili comes within striking distance.

Landfall is expected on Thursday about noon. The National Hurricane Center said at 4 p.m. Tuesday that Lili was a Category Two hurricane with sustained 105 mph winds. The hurricane was about 55 miles off the northwestern coast of Cuba or 600 miles southeast of New Orleans, and moving northwest at 15 mph.

Shell Oil said it pulled its last remaining 250 workers out of the Gulf on Tuesday. A total of 1,600 Shell employees have been evacuated again this week. A spokeswoman said the company probably would maintain 120 MMcf/d of Mobile Bay gas production for as long as possible, and about 150 MMcf/d of gas production in the Western Gulf would be remotely maintained. Shell has a total of 1.9 Bcf/d of gross gas production and 390,000 bbl/d of gross oil production in the Gulf.

Anadarko said Tuesday all of its 54,000 boe of oil and gas production was shut in (250 MMcf/d of gas and 15,000 bbl/d of oil) and all 431 employees have been evacuated. “But we’re evacuating fewer people this week because not 100% of them were back out yet,” said spokeswoman Lee Warren. She said fog around New Orleans was making evacuation more urgent.

BP spokesman Larry Thomas said all of BP’s personnel have been evacuated except for 100 or fewer who are manning operations in the Western Gulf around Matagorda Island. About 1,500 BP employees and contractors had to be extracted from the Gulf only four days after returning, he said.

“It’s part of doing business in the Gulf. We have days set aside for an impact on production and we will always err on the side of safety when it comes to the personnel operating out there,” said Thomas. “Every year we take an average of how many days we’ve lost over the past five years and figure that into the plan. This is probably a little above average because this would be our third impact — Hanna had some impact on us, Isidore and now Lili.”

BP produces 535,000 boe/d of gas and oil in the Gulf, but Thomas said it was company policy to withhold exact curtailment information. “We are probably looking at late Friday at the very earliest before we can get back out on those platforms.”

Spokesman Ed Burwell said ExxonMobil was maintaining full gas and oil production despite Lili’s rapid approach. About 230 non-essential personnel were evacuated Tuesday morning, but 220 people were left out in the Gulf pending further information on the hurricane. The company normally has about 550 employees in the Gulf of Mexico. “We had resumed full production over the weekend and everyone was returned to operations. Then we began evacuating the non-essential personnel this morning. Today was a crew change day for us anyway so that helps some. Obviously if you can do it in accordance with your normal schedule, it [helps].” He said ExxonMobil’s production is about 110,000 bbl/d oil and 1.3 Bcf/d of gas.

Unocal said it pulled about 475 employees and contractors from the Gulf, which is all of its personnel. Apache Corp., the largest independent producer operating on the Gulf Shelf with 380 MMcf/d of gas production and 35,000 bbl/d of oil, started evacuating personnel Tuesday morning. Apache spokesman Bill Mintz said the company expected all employees east of Galveston to be evacuated by the end of the day. The company intends to evacuated the Western Gulf on Wednesday and was maintaining about 150 MMcf/d of Western Gulf gas production on Tuesday. The company has a total of 160 personnel in the Gulf of Mexico.

In addition to the producers, the following gas pipelines reported curtailments: Transcontinental Gas Pipe Line (600 MMcf/d and rising); Trunkline Terrebonne (200 MMcf/d); Sea Robin (150); MOPS (50 MMcf/d into FGT); and FGT (150-200).

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