More than half of the natural gas that had been shut in before Hurricane Ike made landfall Sept. 13 along the Gulf Coast remained shut in Friday, the Minerals Management Service (MMS) reported. Of the 7.4 Bcf/d of gas that was being produced offshore before Ike and Hurricane Gustav crossed into the Gulf of Mexico (GOM) early this month, 52.8% still had not resumed production.

Based on 62 operators’ reports that had been submitted by midday Friday, MMS also reported that 57.4% of the usual 1.3 million b/d of oil remained shut in.

MMS recalculated the number of manned platforms in the GOM after 23 were confirmed destroyed by Ike. Based on the revised figure of 694 manned platforms, 145, or 20.1%, remained shuttered Friday. One of the 116 manned rigs also was still evacuated.

Operators by late Thursday had restored 36%, or 586 MMcf/d of Louisiana’s daily gas production capacity, which is 1,642 MMcf/d, according to the state’s Department of Natural Resources. About 68,998 b/d of oil also was shut in.

Seven major gas pipes in the Gulf Coast area continued to report complete shut-ins of their systems as well. Four of the seven pipes had notified customers that they were ready to return to service, but “due to continued assessments of damage to interconnecting facilities and/or lack of upstream gas flow, these pipelines remain completely shut in,” the Department of Energy Office of Electricity Delivery & Energy Reliability stated in a situation report. Repairs were ongoing at the other three pipelines, and the integrity of their lines was being verified.

Seven of the 39 major gas processing plants in Ike’s path, with total operating capacity of 4.68 Bcf/d, still were shuttered Friday, the Energy Information Administration stated. Twenty-six plants had resumed operation, and five plants were able to restart once they had power restored or once upstream gas flows were sufficient.

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