Hurricane Ida forced shutdowns of the majority of oil and gas production in the US Gulf of Mexico. Market participants said some oil contracts were cancelled across the globe due to two-week production losses in the US Gulf of Mexico. Three-quarters of the region’s oil production remained offline two weeks after producers shut output and evacuated workers from offshore platforms.
According to the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement, around 1.39 million bpd of oil output and 1.72 Bcfd gas production remained offline on Thursday. Crews have not returned to 71 platforms of the 288 evacuated ahead of the storm in late August.
Royal Dutch Shell on Thursday declared force majeure on crude deliveries to Asia due to storm damages, adding that 80% of its Gulf production was still shut. The company has yet to determine the extent of damages at its West Delta-143 offshore facility, an oil and gas transfer hub that connects three large deepwater fields to shore via pipelines.
Chevron has partially restarted production at one of its six platforms. The company said it faced challenges to receive oil at two onshore terminals due to offshore pipeline restrictions. Murphy Oil and Occidental Petroleum said full operation resumption was delayed by “third-party” operations.
