Areas along the Texas Gulf Coast were being evacuated Wednesday ahead of the anticipated arrival Saturday of Hurricane Ike, which some forecasters fear could be the worst storm to hit Texas in nearly 40 years. Oil and natural gas producers were transporting their remaining offshore employees onshore, and nearly all Gulf of Mexico (GOM) production was expected to be shut in by the weekend.

President Bush Wednesday declared a hurricane emergency in Texas and ordered federal aid to supplement state and local response efforts.

In its 5 p.m. EDT forecast Wednesday, the National Hurricane Center (NHC) said Ike was moving northwest “toward a weakness in the subtropical ridge,” which is forecast to build over Thursday and Friday and may turn Ike “northward to varying degrees.” The official forecast, which earlier had put landfall north of Corpus Christi, TX, “is nudged only slightly northward,” the NHC stated. “Regardless of where the center crosses the coast, the effects of Ike will be felt over a large area.” Ike was expected to become a Category Three storm on Thursday with winds of at least 111 mph.

The computer models Wednesday failed to reach agreement about where Ike eventually will make landfall. A northward shift in several models, including the European models, would have Ike making landfall in Galveston, TX, as a “strong” Category Three hurricane, said meteorologist Jeff Masters of wunderground.com. “With a trough of low pressure expected to turn Ike northwestward close to landfall time, slight variations in the timing of this trough among the models is causing a large spread in landfall locations. Given the recent trend in the models to take Ike farther north, I would expect more of the models in future runs may be joining the GFDL [Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory] in predicting a Galveston landfall. The cone of uncertainty still covers the entire Texas coast, and residents of southwestern Louisiana are also at risk.”

AccuWeather.com meteorologist Alex Sosnowski said “recent computer guidance has shown a great deal of variation and the exact landfall location remains very uncertain…We do anticipate a turn more to the northwest Friday and Friday night as Ike begins to sense the Texas coast and a trough of low pressure to the west.”

GOM shut-ins that began in earnest during the weekend of Aug. 30 ahead of Hurricane Gustav were under way once again. Lehman Brothers analyst Daniel Guertin noted that Ike’s forecast track as of midday Wednesday would put it “south of most of the oil and natural gas platforms in the northern Gulf of Mexico, but very high seas will still force shut-ins across much of the Gulf of Mexico and should continue to hinder the production recovery efforts from Hurricane Gustav last week.”

The Department of Energy (DOE) reported Wednesday that Mississippi Canyon Pipeline, Venice Gathering System and Destin Pipeline were reporting no gas flow from offshore points and their force majeure declarations remained in effect. DOE also reported that Enbridge UTOS, Stingray Pipeline, Garden Banks Gas Pipeline and Manta Ray Gathering had reported force majeures and shut in their systems in preparation for Hurricane Ike (see Transportation Notes). Mandatory evacuations in some parts of Texas and Louisiana were forcing the shut-ins of some onshore processing facilities as well.

Based on data from 67 operators’ reports, the Minerals Management Service (MMS) at midday Wednesday estimated that 73.1% of the GOM’s natural gas production was shut in. Pre-Gustav, gas output was around 7.4 Bcf/d. MMS also estimated that 95.5% of the oil output had been shut in; before Gustav, oil output approached 1.3 million b/d. Personnel at midday Wednesday had been evacuated from 452 production platforms, or 63% of the 717 manned platforms, and 81 rigs, or 66.9% of the 121 rigs operating in the GOM.

Offshore operators, including Shell Oil Co., BP plc and ExxonMobil Corp., the largest leaseholders in the GOM, planned to evacuate all of their offshore workers by the end of Wednesday.

“Shell-operated production will be shut in with the exception of natural gas from the Fairway Field in the Mobile Bay (AL) area,” said spokesperson Robin Lebovitz. “We are working our redeployment plans and expect to be able to start sending crews out to some of our East operations area on Friday afternoon. Redeployment to remaining areas of the Gulf will continue Saturday and Sunday, weather permitting.”

NHC called for these odds of getting hurricane force winds at various Texas cities: Brownsville, 9%; Corpus Christi, 17%; Port O’Connor, 24%; Freeport, 23%; Galveston, 20%; and Houston, 13%.

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