BP Plc cuts off the output in their three platforms in the northern Gulf of Mexico and starts evacuating workers as storm approaches. Tropical storm Cristobal was formed in the southwestern Gulf of Mexico on June 2, and approaching towards central Florida and Louisiana, bringing tropical rainstorm with strong winds up to 60 mph (96 km/h). The storm is forecasted to make landfall around Louisiana on Sunday. Cristobal has made landfall on the coast of Mexico on Wednesday, June 3, and moving inland over the eastern side of Mexico while projected to appear in the southern Gulf of Mexico by Friday, June 5, and moving further north, as announced by the U.S. National Hurricane Center.
BP is planned to reduce its production at Na Kika, Atlantis and Thunder Horse platforms, which located east from the storm’s projection course, and for the Mad Dog platform, non-essential workers are pulled back to shore but no cut back on production.
Another oil company located in the area are also taking precautionary actions. Equinor ASA, Norwegian state-owned company own Titan platform in the Gulf of Mexico already began evacuating on Wednesday and planned to shut down their production on Friday if the storm continuing its projected path. Occidental Petroleum Corporation is also beginning flying its worker to shore from their operation platforms, but until now their productions are uninterrupted since the evacuation so far is only for non-essential workers. Other oil company operating in the Gulf of Mexico including Hess Corp, Chevron Corp, BHP Petroleum, Royal Dutch Shell and Exxon Mobil Corp said they are monitoring the progression of the storm but have not yet evacuated workers.
The Gulf of Mexico is accounted for 15% of total U.S. crude oil production in 2020, as mentioned in U.S. Energy Information Administration data.
