Gulf Coast Oil and Gas Drilling Shuts Down Ahead of Gustav

[Barack_America]

Predicted to be shutdown all of next week.

That should be a big boost to the GOP's "Drill Here, Drill Now"-themed convention, no?

:rofl:

UPDATE: MMS:US Gulf Producers Shut In 77% Oil, 37% Gas Output

NEW YORK -(Dow Jones)- Energy producers have shut in approximately 77% of oil output and 37% of natural gas production in the Gulf of Mexico, as the industry shutters its activities ahead of the extremely powerful Hurricane Gustav, the U.S. Minerals Management Service said Saturday.

Most of the shut-in production is unlikely to return before the end of next week.

The agency said personnel have been evacuated from a total of 223 production platforms, equivalent to 31.1% of the 717 manned platforms in the Gulf of Mexico. Most of the major producers, including the two largest - Royal Dutch Shell PLC (RDSA) and BP PLC (BP) have announced a total halt to offshore operations ahead of Gustav's arrival in the region. Others, including Chevron Corp. (CVX), have partially cut production linked to platforms shut down by other producers.

Crews from 45 rigs have also been evacuated, as of 12:30 a.m. EDT, equivalent to 37.2% of the 121 rigs currently operating in the Gulf.

According to the report, nearly 1 million barrels of daily oil production is now shut down. The last time this happened was in November 2005, after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. In addition, 2.75 billion cubic feet of daily natural gas production is now shut down.

More:
http://money.cnn.com/news/newsfeeds/articles/djf500/200808301801DOWJONESDJONLINE000478_FORTUNE5.htm


For your comparison:

The location of oil rigs/platforms in the Gulf of Mexico (with Rita's and Katrina's listed)



The projected path of Hurricane Gustav


Uh oh. ;)

(This is a re-post of a GD-P post, I had meant to post it here but posted it there by mistake.)

[stillcool]

1. Republican prayer...

"Please God, save the oil rigs"

[200overcast]

2. Shouldn't that be the prayer of anybody who buys gas?

?

[stillcool]

3. I would think that anybody else...

would think of people before gas. What do you value more?

[Barack_America]

4. I would think they should all be praying for a sensible energy plan.

Where their livelihoods don't depend on oil rigs dodging the increasing number of major hurricanes in the Gulf.

[Barack_America]

5. Not this time. Oil production in the gulf still hasn't returned to pre-Katrina levels...

And, as you can see from the map, neither Katrina nor Rita made a direct hit on the bulk of rigs/platforms. Gustav is predicted to do just that.

It's going to be really, really bad.