Katrina Could be in Gulf of Mexico by Saturday
Most of southeast Florida is under a hurricane watch as Tropical Storm Katrina moves closer to the state. Forecasters at the National Hurricane Center in Miami have posted tropical storm warnings and a hurricane watch from Florida City just south of Miami north to Vero Beach.
Katrina has maximum sustained winds of 40-miles per hour, but the storm is expected to grow stronger and become a minimal hurricane before it comes ashore Friday morning.
Katrina is expected to emerge over the Gulf of Mexico by Saturday morning and could re-strengthen before making landfall along the Gulf Coast.
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Katrina Gaining Strength in Gulf of Mexico
Residents of the Florida Panhandle and other parts of the Gulf Coast nervously monitored the path of Hurricane Katrina on Saturday as weary South Florida homeowners cleaned mud out of basements flooded by the storm and street crews canoed through miles of inundated roadways.
Katrina threatened an encore visit as early as Monday after ripping across southern Florida and killing seven people. But forecasters were uncertain of exactly where it might strike, saying the storm could make landfall anywhere from the Panhandle to Louisiana.
"The people of Pensacola don't need another one. They just don't need
Oil Production Down 78 Percent in Gulf of Mexico
The U.S. government says oil production in the Gulf of Mexico was nearly 80 percent below normal as of Saturday, five days after Hurricane Katrina tore through the region.
A report from the U.S. Minerals Management Service said Katrina had cut oil production in the Gulf by about 1.18 million barrels of oil per day. It said more than 280 offshore oil-drilling rigs and platforms remained evacuated.
The figures represent a slight improvement from Friday, when oil production in the Gulf was nearly 90 percent below normal.
Katrina's disruption to Gulf-area oil production and refineries
Shell, BP evacuate Gulf of Mexico workers due to Hurricane Katrina
Royal Dutch Shell PLC and BP PLC have evacuated workers from their platforms in the Gulf of Mexico as Hurricane Katrina heads towards the area.
Shell, in a statement, said it will evacuate around 120 non-essential staff from the eastern part of its Gulf operations as a 'precaution'.
A BP spokesman said it will also evacuate a still undetermined number of workers.
Both companies said the move will not affect their Gulf production.
Katrina came ashore in Florida on Thursday, killing at least three people and leaving about 1.5 mln
US Gulf of Mexico oil output 100 pct shut-MMS
Offshore U.S. crude oil production in the Gulf of Mexico was totally shut for the second straight day on Sunday with natural gas output also lower, the U.S. Minerals Management Service said in its daily report logging the impact of Hurricane Rita and the prior Hurricane Katrina.
The MMS said the percentage of oil output shut was 100 percent for both Sunday and Saturday, up from 99.125 percent on Friday. The normal daily oil output from Gulf of Mexico operations is 1.5 million barrels per day.
For natural gas, 8.047 billion cubic feet
Offshore U.S. crude oil production in the Gulf of Mexico was totally shut on Saturday with natural gas output also lower, the U.S. Minerals Management Service said in its daily report logging the impact of Hurricane Rita and the prior Hurricane Katrina.
MMS said the percentage of oil output shut was 100 percent, up from 99.125 percent on Friday. The normal daily oil output from Gulf of Mexico operations is 1.5 million barrels per day.
The report said 1.5 million bpd of crude oil production was shut as Saturday, in contrast to 1.486 million bpd reported shut on Friday.
For natural
Offshore U.S. crude oil production in the Gulf of Mexico was totally shut on Saturday with natural gas output also lower, the U.S. Minerals Management Service said in its daily report logging the impact of Hurricane Rita and the prior Hurricane Katrina.
MMS said the percentage of oil output shut was 100 percent, up from 99.125 percent on Friday. The normal daily oil output from Gulf of Mexico operations is 1.5 million barrels per day.
The report said 1.5 million bpd of crude oil production was shut as Saturday, in contrast to 1.486 million bpd reported shut on Friday.
For natural gas,
Gulf of Mexico acts as gale
Millions of people cowered in fear yesterday as Hurricane Katrina slammed into New Orleans and the Gulf Coast of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama with 225-kilometre-an-hour winds fuelled by the warm waters of the the Gulf of Mexico.
After stumbling across southern Florida as a weak category one storm late last week, Katrina wobbled into the Gulf and surged in strength over the next four days, becoming several times stronger before coming ashore yesterday as a category four hurricane with a storm track almost 640 km wide.
In terms of Gulf hurricanes, Katrina was almost the perfect storm.
"When
Hurricane Katrina enters the Gulf of Mexico
HURRICANE Katrina passed through southern Florida overnight Thursday and entered the Gulf of Mexico early Friday morning at a point north of and near Cape Sable, in the southwestern Florida peninsula, according to Official Note No. 12 from the Cuban Meteorological Institute’s Forecast Center.
Katrina, after weakening somewhat upon touching land, once again reached the category of hurricane; the storm now has sustained maximum winds of 120 kilometers per hour, with stronger gusts, and its central pressure has gone down to 987 hectoPascal, which is why is remains a Category 1 hurricane on the
Katrina Strengthens on a Path Through Gulf of Mexico (Update2)
Katrina strengthened as it headed into the Gulf of Mexico after it swept across southern Florida, killing four people and leaving more than one million homes without power.
The hurricane's center was about 60 miles (97 kilometers) west-northwest of Key West, Florida, the National Hurricane Center in Miami said in its 2 p.m. advisory. Katrina was moving west- southwest at about 8 mph (13 kph), the center said.
Katrina blasted the state with rain and wind, knocking down trees, tossing debris and wiping out power to more than a million
Hurricane Wilma heads for Gulf of Mexico
Hurricane Wilma strengthened in the Caribbean Tuesday and headed toward the Gulf of Mexico, where it seemed likely to spare battered U.S. oil and gas fields but threatened storm-weary Florida.
The rapidly intensifying storm also menaced Honduras and Nicaragua with up to 10 inches of rain, compounding the woes of Central America. More than 1,000 people in Guatemala and El Salvador were killed by landslides and floods triggered by Hurricane Stan this month.
Wilma was expected to strengthen into a major hurricane with winds of more than 110 mph by Thursday and its likely
