Energy companies’ operations in the Gulf of Mexico (GOM) were returning to normal Tuesday after Tropical Storm Ida blew through the eastern GOM. For the energy industry the storm turned out to be a nonevent in a 2009 hurricane season that could be described as the same.

“With Tropical Storm Ida making landfall and moving onshore to the northeast, Shell drilling and producing operations in the Gulf of Mexico are returning to normal,” the major said in a notice Tuesday morning. “There was no significant damage to any Shell-operated facilities. The minimal Shell-operated production shut in on Monday will resume today as downstream operators return personnel to their facilities.”

Ida, which had been a Category 2 hurricane, made landfall Tuesday morning at Mobile, AL, causing minor flooding and minimal power outages.

Shell was among a number of GOM operators that had shut down operations and evacuated personnel in anticipation of the storm. However, Tuesday morning saw operations returning to normal.

Anadarko had evacuated and shut in production at four operated facilities in the eastern GOM. The facilities — Independence Hub, Constitution, Marco Polo and Neptune) — and one nonoperated facility Blind Faith) were producing approximately 105,000 Boe/d net to Anadarko prior to being shut in.

“Now that Hurricane Ida has passed and weakened to a tropical depression, we are in the process of assessing our facilities and anticipate returning personnel to our operated platforms in the eastern Gulf of Mexico later today and tomorrow,” Anadarko said Tuesday morning. “We will begin ramping up production as quickly and safely as possible, and as third-party infrastructure allows.”

About 30 MMcf/d of lost volume was expected to return Wednesday to TransCanada’s ANR GOM system, the company said. ExxonMobil said operations in the GOM had returned to normal but it was waiting to restart its facilities at Mobile Bay until after it assessed any damage caused by the storm.

Based on data from offshore operator reports submitted by 43 companies to the Minerals Management Service as of late Tuesday morning, personnel were evacuated from 158 production platforms, equivalent to 22.8% of the 694 manned platforms in the GOM. Personnel from 10 rigs have were evacuated; this is equivalent to 15.2% of the 66 rigs that had been operating in the Gulf. It was estimated that approximately 43.09% of oil production in the GOM and approximately 27.96% of natural gas production were shut in. Estimated production from the GOM as of March 2009 was 1.3 million b/d of oil and 7 Bcf/d of gas (see Daily GPI, Nov. 10).

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