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 you have something that is already formed when it enters the Gulf, that’s just like adding a bunch of high-octane fuel to it,” said Cary Mock of the Climate Research Lab at the University of South Carolina.
Dr. Mock, who has delved into old diaries, journals and plantation records to reconstruct a history of hurricanes over the past three centuries in the U.S. South, said Katrina followed a familiar path as it slapped at Florida before fuelling its rage in the Gulf of Mexico and then pounding ashore on the U.S. Gulf Coast.
More: canada.com
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
Woodside chases Gulf of Mexico deal
Woodside Petroleum Ltd will expand its interests in the Gulf of Mexico, if a $US883 million ($A1.17 billion) takeover bid for US-based explorer and producer Energy Partners Ltd (EPL) is successful.
Woodside, through its wholly owned subsidiary ATS Inc, has offered $US23 cash per share for the 38.396 million of EPL shares on issue in the US.
Woodside said the acquisition would immediately increase its production and reserves in the Gulf of Mexico, with EPL producing around 28,000 barrels of oil a day on average.
More : theage.com.au
Senate Pushes Expanded Oil Drilling in Gulf of Mexico
In the 1980s, Senators and Representatives introduced legislation to protect the Gulf of Mexico, to restrict drilling. This Congress plans to expand drilling. This week the Senate quadrupled the Presidents request (map - pdf) for new acreage in the Gulf of Mexico.
Less than two weeks after S. 3711 was introduced, the Senate voted 71-25 to open up an additional 8.3 million acres of east-central Gulf of Mexico to drilling, ostensibly to provide relief for consumers.
However, no new crude will hit the market for 4-5 years -- and when it does,
Grouper fight flares in Gulf of Mexico:-
Recreational and commercial fishermen are being pitted against each other by a plan to limit hauls of red grouper in the Gulf of Mexico.
Federal fishery management officials have proposed closing Gulf of Mexico grouper fishing to recreational fishermen, allowing commercial boats to continue their catch, the Christian Science Monitor reported Friday.
Florida state officials have said they do not intend to enforce that ban, since tourists pay $26 million a year to Florida charter boats to fish in the gulf.
The Monitor said recreational fishermen pull in about 18 percent of the 5.3 million pounds of
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
Chevron evacuating Gulf of Mexico workers before Rita
Chevron Corp. said Monday it is evacuating oil rig workers in the Gulf of Mexico before Tropical Storm Rita hits, a move which could reduce oil production in the region.
based Chevron (NYSE:CVX) told Reuters that its evacuations were a normal procedure, similar to what it did before Hurricane Katrina blew through the Gulf.
Chevron didn't say how the evacuation will affect its oil or natural gas production.
Tropical Storm Rita was heading toward the Florida Keys and several weather models projected it would enter the Gulf and become a category one hurricane.
Reuters
Wilma may become hurricane, heads for Gulf of Mexico
Four of seven major weather models predict Tropical Storm Wilma, which could become a hurricane by Tuesday, will head for the Gulf Coast of Florida.
Earlier Monday morning, most of the models forecast the storm would crash into the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico or Belize later this week.
By late morning, most of the forecasts showed the storm would turn north toward western Cuba and Florida's Gulf Coast.
The U.S. National Hurricane Center still forecast the storm would graze the northeastern tip of the Yucatan and enter the Gulf of Mexico where it could
BP, Shell say Gulf of Mexico ops still suspended
BP PLC and the Royal Dutch Shell said their operations at the Gulf of Mexico remained suspended even as initial inspection showed the offshore facilities sustained little damage from Hurricane Rita.
'The (US Gulf) facilities as of Monday are still completely shut. The situation is still the same,' said a BP spokeswoman.
BP continues to check the facilities and will not allow operations to resume until it is completely certain that it is safe to do so.
'Initial assessment on Sunday via aerial overflights and small crews placed on several BP-operated deepwater
Norsk Hydro in Gulf of Mexico acquisition
Norsk Hydro, the Norwegian energy and metals group, said on Monday it was buying Spinnaker Exploration, the US oil company operating in the Gulf of Mexico, for about $2.5bn.
The all-cash transaction represents Hydro’s biggest acquisition of overseas oil and gas assets to date, Eivind Reiten, chief executive, told the Financial Times.
More: news.ft.com
