More than 70 percent of US oil production in the Gulf of Mexico has been shut down because of the threat of Hurricane Rita and the aftermath of Katrina, authorities reported Wednesday.
More than 57 percent of manned offshore plaforms and 51 percent of rigs in the area were evacuated, the Department of Interior’s Minerals Management Service said.
“Todays shut-in oil production is 1,097,357 (barrels of oil per day),” MMS said, adding that this represented 73.16 percent of the US production of 1.5 million barrels per day in the Gulf of Mexico.
A total of 469 manned platforms, out of 819, and 69 of the 134 rigs were evacuated.
MMS said the statistics reflected evacuations and shut-in production from both Katrina and Rita.
Separately, the US Energy Information Administration said Rita poses a risk to an area with nearly one-fourth of US refining capacity as well as a large number of offshore and onshore oil production centers.
“If Hurricane Rita remains strong, and follows a more northerly path towards the western portion of the Gulf of Mexico … the impact could be significant as new areas of offshore as well as onshore petroleum infrastructure would be impacted,” the agency said.
“With Hurricane Rita headed towards possible landfall in Texas, several major refining centers may also be at risk. Of Texas 26 refineries, 18 are located near the Gulf of Mexico. The combined crude oil distillation capacity of these refineries totals 4.0 million barrels per day, about 23 percent of the nation’s crude oil refining capacity. While not all of this capacity would be affected under any scenario, it does point out how much refining capacity is at risk.”
