A resurrected Ivan startled the Gulf of Mexico oil and gas industry last week, reaching tropical storm status offshore Louisiana on Thursday with winds peaking at 60 mph and forcing some additional platform evacuations and more production shut-ins.

The Minerals Management Service (MMS) said Friday that it received one report from a producer that six platforms in the Lake Charles District were evacuated with combined production shut ins totaling 257 bbl/d of oil and 49 MMcf/d of gas. A total of 31 platforms and one rig remained evacuated on Friday from Ivan’s first visit in the eastern Gulf.

Gas production shut ins totaled 2,356 MMcf/d with cumulative shut ins since Sept. 13 standing at 43.3 Bcf. Crude oil shut ins totaled 471,469 bbl/d Friday with cumulative shut ins up to 10 million bbl. The shut-in totals, however, do not include production lost from the seven platforms that were destroyed.

The MMS said earlier in the week that in addition to the destroyed platforms there also were four platforms with extensive damage, two spars and one MODU with extensive damage, one platform that was leaning over, two rig derricks leaning or missing and 13 pipeline leaks, some of which have been repaired. An MMS spokeswoman said on Friday that the agency hopes to put together an updated damage report sometime this week.

Ivan’s second visit to the Gulf last week hindered platform repairs and slowed the return of production. On Monday, shut ins had totaled 2.9 Bcf/d and by Friday only about 600 MMcf/d had been returned to service.

“We are still working to get back up to normal operations from [Ivan’s first visit],” said BP spokeswoman Ayana McIntosh Lee on Thursday. Now BP must evacuate another 10 personnel. “We fully expect to redeploy them [Friday],” she said.

Lee said BP still has to conduct detailed inspections and develop repair plans in order to get full production back on line. She would not provide current production statistics. “Our initial assessments confirm minor impacts to instrumentation and electrical systems on some of our deepwater facilities [from Ivan’s earlier rampage through the eastern Gulf]. We’re making progress everyday.”

Meanwhile, Noble Energy was not so lucky. It lost three Main Pass platforms after Ivan’s first visit and Ivan Part II prevented most of the damage assessment and repair work it had planned last week. “We were able to find the platforms with sonar. They are on the ocean floor within a 400-foot radius of where the platforms were originally positioned, but unfortunately with the weather that we are having in the Gulf now we have not been able to get divers out there to really fully assess what we’ve got,” said Noble spokesman Greg Panagos.

He said that production lost from the three destroyed platforms totaled 1,400 boe/d of oil, only 13% of which was natural gas. A fourth Noble Energy platform also had minor damage. Noble had seven platforms in the Main Pass area, which represented only about 3% of its production.

“It’s going to take a little while until we know the full extent of the damage from this storm,” said Panagos. “I think there were 40 and 50 foot waves for extended periods of time and then some of our buoys showed that there were some waves, not many but some, that were over 70 feet. That’s a lot of force. If you see that above the surface, you can just imagine what is going on under the water. Those platforms just took a beating.”

Magnum Hunter Resources said last week that it won’t be back up to full production from its affected wells until mid October. “While most production should be restored within the next 10 days, all presently shut-in production is anticipated to be back on line by mid-October,” the company said.

Magnum Hunter said its production losses will total about 23.3 MMcfe/d for the month of September and 10 MMcfe/d for the month of October 2004, which represents 31% of its September Gulf production and 13% of its October Gulf production. It expects its quarterly production will be 5% less than previously estimated due to Hurricane Ivan.

However, its facilities in the Main Pass and West Cameron areas incurred less than $500,000 in damages from the hurricane. High winds and wave action damaged walkways, handrails, helipads, and control lines but those damages are considered minor. While the eye of the hurricane came within 35 miles of the company’s operated platforms, “there appears to be no permanent damage to these properties,” Magnum Hunter said.

ExxonMobil reported on Thursday that it still had a “nominal amount of production shut in” from Ivan’s first visit and did not expect any more from Ivan’s return. “We have about 7,000 bbl/d of crude production shut in and less than 100 MMcf/d of gas, but most of that is associated with third party processing or pipelines being down,” said spokesman Bob Davis. “We have some limited production shut in in the Alabama and Florida Panhandle area mainly [due] to continued power outages.” ExxonMobil has a total of about 80,000 bbl/d of crude oil production in the Gulf and a total of 1.2 Bcf/d of natural gas.

Shell said all but three of its operated facilities were back at pre Hurricane Ivan production levels. RamPowell, Cognac and Main Pass 252 remain she in while storm related damage is repaired. The company could not predict when repairs would be completed. Total gross production deferral as a result of Ivan through the beginning of last week for Shell was about 3.5 million boe.

Anadarko reported normal operations on Thursday despite the return of Ivan. “We are back to normal production since the first storm with no damage to our platforms and we are watching the storm that is out there right now but we haven’t changed anything as far as production or personnel,” said Anadarko spokeswoman Margaret Cooper.

Newfield Exploration said it sustained no major damage to its operated platforms from Ivan, but expected to spend the next 30 to 60 days making minor repairs. About 1 Bcfe of Newfield’s net production was deferred because of the hurricane. An additional 26 MMcfe/d remained offline last week awaiting repairs to both operated and non-operated production facilities and pipelines in the Ship Shoal, Main Pass and Viosca Knoll areas of the Gulf, the company said. Combined, Newfield expects that 2.5 Bcfe of net production will be deferred.

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