Two drilling rigs capsized, another was blown 45 miles from its mooring and one platform was damaged, according to early reports, as Hurricane Lili went through the Gulf of Mexico production area early Thursday as a Category 4, before dropping in intensity and hitting the Louisiana coast as a Category 2 with winds of less than 110 mph.

Despite losing strength before reaching shore, Lili apparently remained quite powerful when she passed over some offshore exploration and production equipment. BP spokesman Larry Thomas said measurement equipment on the company’s offshore production facilities registered 150 mph winds from Hurricane Lili on Thursday.

Rowan Companies Inc. reported that its Rowan-Houston jack-up rig capsized in 105 feet of water in Ship Shoal Block 207, while Diamond Offshore Drilling Inc. said Lili ripped its semisubmersible drilling unit, Ocean Lexington, from its moorings and blew the drilling rig 45 miles before it grounded in 35 feet of water offshore Louisiana. Rowan said an aerial survey showed the rest of its 22 rigs appeared to be undamaged.

Nabors Industries, a Houston-based oil service and drilling company said one of its jack-up rigs on Ship Shoal Block 126, about 20 miles off the Louisiana coast capsized in about 40 feet of water. “We had moved the rig away from the platform and secured it for Isidore, took 3-4 days to get it back up and then had to resecure it for Lili,” a spokesman said. “We were right down the main path of the storm” he added. A fly-by in a fixed wing plane Thursday confirmed the rig was toppled. There was no oil sheen. Nabors, which was operating the platform for BP, said it would have to send personnel out to assess the damage, but it could be awhile. “Most of our people are located in the northern Louisiana and Mississippi area,” and given conditions onshore, they could have a hard time getting back.

BP’s Thomas said the storm was still a Category 4 hurricane when it was passing over a lot of deepwater exploration and production equipment and some of the most intense winds reached older shelf production facilities. Damage assessments currently are being done and BP, Shell and other producers were hoping to be able to resume production over the weekend.

“Our sensors on buoys and platforms showed some readings of 150 mph winds and 30-foot swells and I heard rumors that others had even higher readings,” said Thomas. “Although the storm had gone down to a Category 2 when it reached the coast, it had been much stronger offshore. We certainly bore the brunt of it. I think you’ll start seeing reports of at least some damage.”

“This was not a normal storm,” said Thomas. “It was a large and powerful storm when it was in the heart of the offshore industry. The bulk of our platforms are within about 60 miles from shore. However, when they were saying [the Category 4] storm was 95 miles off they were calculating from the eye. There were high winds much closer in.”

Thomas said many shelf platforms are 30-40 years old. “The newer stuff, such as the semisubmersibles and spars are designed to weather this type of a storm, whereas some of the Shelf platforms are older and [weaker].”

Thomas said BP planned to return the bulk of its personnel back out Friday and would be doing damage assessments throughout the day before restarting any production. “We are dependent upon a lot of different factors. Our employees are scattered all about and we have to get them all back out. A lot of them live in the Louisiana area, so it won’t happen quickly. We also can’t produce unless we have pipelines operating and they are all inspecting their systems.”

CMS Trunkline spokesman John Barnett said the SeaRobin and Terrebonne offshore gathering systems are being inspected but still are not transporting any production. “From what I’ve heard, it probably won’t be any different until [Saturday]. We need to get out there and inspect facilities and the producers still need to inspect rigs and report back. Keep in mind, there’s also no power right now in Louisiana.” SeaRobin has a total capacity of 1 Bcf/d and Terrebonne has a capacity of 1.5 Bcf/d.

Houston-based Rowan said mid-day Friday that an aerial survey of its 22 rigs in the Gulf found that its Rowan-Houston rig had apparently capsized in approximately 105 feet of water in Ship Shoal Block 207, offshore Louisiana. The company noted that all its other rigs appear to be undamaged. Rowan said all appropriate regulatory agencies have been notified and the company is in the process of conducting a thorough investigation to determine the cause. Rowan is a major provider of international and domestic offshore contract drilling services.

Shell’s said its Gulf of Mexico staff began returning to facilities this morning and following damage assessments and safety checks, production in the Gulf of Mexico will be gradually increasing over the weekend.

Minerals Management Service (MMS) spokesman Barney Congdon said it would take quite a while to complete an assessment of damage to production facilities in the Gulf but so far, producers have reported damage to only four production or drilling facilities. “They are all in Eugene Island and that’s what we would anticipate as the storm came through that pretty heavily populated area.

“This will be a large list [of damage] eventually,” he predicted. Besides the three rigs, one platform on Ship Shoal Block 119 about 18 miles from shore was reported damaged with a wellhead was missing, and some gas and condensate leaking from the well, Congdon said.

“We’re probably in a little better shape than when Andrew hit because of new technology,” Congdon said. Lili went over quite a few of Shell’s deepwater production facilities. They may not have damage because some of their big projects, Genesis and others, can handle it.

“There are 4,038 structures out there and the majority of them are in the Central Gulf right where Lili went through. It’s hard to tell what the results will show. We had a tremendous amount damage during Andrew, and reports from onshore during Lili said it was much worse than they got from Andrew. It make sense to say that once they get out there an do an inventory they will have pretty extensive damage out there.”

As of Thursday the Minerals Management Service (MMS) said nearly 60 Bcf of natural gas and 10 million barrels of oil was unavailable for U.S. consumption from the Outer Continental Shelf in the Gulf of Mexico because of shut-ins due to Hurricanes Isidore and Lili, up to that point. On Friday MMS reported another 9.9 Bcf of gas and 1.6 million bbl/d of oil shut in.

However, many producers said they expected to have all their personnel back out on platforms by the end of the day or over the weekend and hoped to begin ramping up production. Transcontinental Gas Pipe Line reported that shut-ins had declined on its system by 400 MMcf/d to about 1 Bcf/d by Friday afternoon. Florida Gas also saw some gas supply return, reporting shut-ins down to 450 MMcf/d from about 600 MMcf/d on Thursday. However, Gulf South and Texas Gas still reported the same amounts as on Thursday, 950 MMcf/d and 300 MMcf/d, respectively, and Columbia Gulf was still reporting 400 MMcf/d of curtailments. Columbia spokesman Bob Kiser said the power outages and downed phone lines in southern Louisiana remained a significant problem. Without power, there’s no compression, he said.

Hurricane Andrew, a notch up from Lili at category 5, caused over a billion dollars worth of damage when it swept through the Gulf on a different trajectory in 1992, causing damage to 241 offshore facilities.

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