Following Hurricane Ivan’s visit late last week, some Gulf of Mexico producers were still locating their assets and assessing damages while others continued to return personnel to their stations offshore to ramp up production.

In the aftermath of Hurricane Ivan, the industry continues to assess the damage to oil and gas infrastructure on the Outer Continental Shelf of the Gulf of Mexico. The latest Minerals Management Service (MMS) damage report released late Monday found that few of the 4,000 platforms or the 117 rigs working in the Gulf sustained major damage.

The government agency said five Mobile Offshore Drilling Units (MODU) were adrift, but all of them have been located. One MODU was reported to be leaning about 3 degrees. The MMS also reported that four fixed platforms were reported missing (presumed sunk). Noble Energy said Monday afternoon that they had located their three missing platforms under water Monday afternoon.

Other damage found included:

The MMS added that preliminary reports show that of the 33,000 miles of pipeline, only three leaks have been reported, and most of the 25,000 to 30,000 workers involved in the production of offshore oil and natural gas are back at work. The agency noted that damage inspections will continue, including under water searches, which may reveal additional impacts. As of Monday, the MMS said it had no reports of any injuries, fatalities or significant pollution.

Earlier in the day, the MMS reported that nearly 2.9 Bcf/d of production remained shut-in with 32 platforms still not operating. The total was down from the 6.5 Bcf/d shut in and 545 unmanned platforms at the height of the storm last week. The cumulative gas production loss has been about 33 Bcf, which is less than 1% of the yearly GOM production. On the oil side 699,214 barrels remained shut in Monday, down from the 1.4 million bbl/d shut in last week. Cumulative oil production lost amounts to about 1.3% of the yearly GOM output.

Four days after losing three of its Main Pass production platforms in the Eastern Gulf of Mexico to the ferocious winds and waves of Hurricane Ivan, Noble Energy Inc. reported Monday afternoon that sonar has located the platforms underwater.

On Thursday evening, Noble Energy said its Main Pass 293A, Main Pass 305C and Main Pass 306E platforms had gone missing while its Main Pass 305B was found damaged. Prior to shut-in for Hurricane Ivan, Noble’s net production at the Main Pass field was 3,400 boe/d. Of the sunken platforms, 87% of the production is oil.

“We have now found all three platforms approximately 400 feet off of their original positions,” said Noble Energy’s Greg Panagos. “We haven’t taken any pictures of them yet, nor have we had any [remote operated vehicles] down there to analyze what we are dealing with.”

As for the company’s next step, Panagos said it is very early in the process. “It’s hard for me to know exactly how long it is going to take to assess the situation,” he said. “At least we have a little clearer picture of what the playing field is.

“This has never happened to Noble Energy in the past, ” he added. Now that all three platforms have been found underwater, Panagos said a number of factors come into play on the company’s next move.

“My guess would be that there would basically be a salvage operation, where you would clean up the debris. Then you would have to make a determination on whether or not you would want to plug and abandon the sites, or if you wanted to go back into some of the wells that were still producing and do some tiebacks.” He added that other decisions ranging from re-drilling wells to new platform construction will also need to be made. However, the company is not at these decision points yet.

Updating its output return progress, Shell said it has been able to return increasing numbers of production and drilling personnel to its central and eastern operations areas over the weekend. As of Sunday, approximately 260 staff had been returned to the central area and approximately 285 to the eastern area.

The company noted that Brutus, South Timbalier 300/301, Auger and Enchilada/Salsa/Hickory are now at full production, while the Mars, Ursa, West Delta 143, Mobile Bay and Bullwinkle facilities are in the production ramp-up process.

Callon Petroleum and Murphy Oil said that Hurricane Ivan damaged a Nabors Industries platform workover rig at the Medusa Field, forcing the company to take the rig off of the production spar for repairs. Production downtime at the Medusa Field, located in Mississippi Canyon Blocks 538 and 582, could be as much as five weeks, the companies said. Medusa is located in 2,200 feet of water and consists of a spar facility capable of handling 40,000 b/d of crude oil and 110 MMcf/d of gas. Murphy is the operator of the field and holds a 60% interest with partners Eni Petroleum (25%) and Callon (15%). Medusa has reserves of 140 million boe and peak production of 36,000 b/d of oil and 40 MMcf/d of gas.

Callon also said that its production facilities at Mobile Blocks 864, 952, 953 and 955 incurred minor damage. It is anticipated that a majority of the Mobile area production will be online within the next week.

Swift Energy reported Monday that its Lake Washington Field onshore in Louisiana resumed production. Based on early indications, the field experienced no significant damage as a result of the hurricane. Both the drilling rig and completion rig are back at work in the field, Swift said. The cumulative estimated production shut-in during the period amounted to less than 0.5 Bcfe.

Updating Gulf of Mexico operations following Hurricane Ivan’s wrath last Thursday, Dominion, Pioneer Natural Resources Co. and Williams said late last Friday that while the Devil’s Tower facility’s platform sustained no “serious structural damage,” production and completion equipment on the surface were damaged.

As a result, Dominion said production could resume as early as three weeks out, subject to repairs and approvals by the MMS and other agencies. Dominion owns a 75% stake in the Devil’s Tower field, while Pioneer owns the remaining 25%. Williams owns the Devil’s Tower spar platform.

Taking it one step further, Pioneer said that a visual inspection of the facilities at the Devil’s Tower field confirmed that the production spar incurred damage including the loss of the platform derrick used in well completion activities. “Further inspection is needed to determine the extent of the damage and its impact on the timing for resuming production from the three wells online prior to the hurricane and for continuing with completion activities for five additional wells drilled to develop the field.” Pioneer said its net production from the field reached approximately 5,000 bbl/d of oil and 4 MMcf/d before operations were suspended in anticipation of the hurricane.

As Williams’ newest asset in the Gulf, the deepwater spar platform was built to serve producers in the Devil’s Tower field at Mississippi Canyon block 773. Commenting on the damage, the company backed up Pioneer in saying that a more detailed inspection at the platform was necessary. “Based on initial estimates, the platform will be out of service through [this] week, and possibly longer,” the company said. The spar platform that began producing in May in a tract about 140 miles southeast of New Orleans.

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