As of late Friday afternoon, 33 platforms and one rig had been evacuated in the western portion of the Gulf in preparation for what was expected to become Hurricane Erika, according to Minerals Management Service. MMS spokeswoman Caryl Fagot pegged Gulf shut-ins at 134.65 MMcf/d of gas and 677 bbl of oil for Friday, which equates to about 0.96% of daily Gulf gas production and 0.04% of daily Gulf oil production.

However, total shut-ins were almost certainly higher. Apache alone reported 134 MMcf/d of shut ins from its platforms.

At press time Friday evening, the National Hurricane Center (NHC) expected the tropical storm to make landfall some time Saturday morning in South Texas and Northeastern Mexico as a cyclone. At 4 p.m. Friday, Erika’s center was 245 miles east of Brownsville, moving westward at 22 mph with maximum sustained winds increasing to 60 mph with higher gusts. The NHC said tropical storm force winds extended outward up to 140 miles from the center.

Erika is “gradually becoming better organized,” the NHC said. Hurricane warnings were in effect from Brownsville to Baffin Bay, TX, and from La Pesca, Mexico northward to the U.S. border.

Apache in the early morning hours Friday evacuated Zones 1 and 2 (about 75 people) with production put on timers. At 10:30 a.m. EDT, Apache spokesman David Higgins, director of strategic communications, said the company had shut-in 134 MMcf/d of natural gas gross (77 MMcf/d net) and 4,200 b/d of oil gross (2,800 b/d net) “Because the storm is fast moving, we expect to be able to get back out to the platforms soon after the storm passes,” he said.

Shell Oil Co.’s Stephanie Johnson said 15 non-essential employees were evacuated from Auger (Garden Banks 426) on Thursday and 18 employees were taken off Shell’s western shallow water assets on Friday. “Minor shut-ins are expected on two platforms not currently remotely operated, amounting to less than 15 MMcf/d,” she said.

ExxonMobil Corp. spokesman Bob Davis said Friday afternoon that his company was in a phase one operation. “We have had no production shut in, nor have we had any evacuations of our people,” Davis said, noting that ExxonMobil currently has 550 workers in the Gulf. “The storm is pretty much south of our operations…and we think it is probably going to hit land by [Saturday].”

Early Friday morning, the Louisiana Offshore Oil Port stopped offloading tankers due to Erika. “We suspended operations early this morning because of high seas,” said LOOP spokeswoman Barb Hestermann said. “We expect to be back online probably early evening, offloading the ships. It’s just a temporary disruption, we did not evacuate the platforms.” She noted that LOOP continues to make deliveries to its customers from inventory at its Clovelly Dome Storage Terminal located near Galliano, LA.

Affiliated pipelines Trunkline and Sea Robin warned that Erika’s current path “could cause production losses on its offshore systems.” The company said that in the event production connected to Trunkline’s offshore system is reduced or shut in, Trunkline will require shippers to take appropriate action.

Texas Eastern reported minimal shut ins early Friday. Transco said Friday at 1:50 CDT that it had not “experienced any impact to flowing gas supplies and does not expect to see a significant impact to production prior to Tropical Storm Erica making landfall if it continues on it current projected path.”

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