Hurricanes force oil companies to evacuate staff from the Gulf of Mexico

U.S. Oil Producers scrambled to evacuate their staff from Gulf of Mexico platforms on Monday as forecasters warned that the second major hurricane within two weeks would likely tear into offshore oil fields.

The U.S. National Hurricane Center stated that a potential Tropical Cyclone System Nine, near the western tip of Cuba, was expected to intensify into a Hurricane on Wednesday as it moved across the eastern Gulf of Mexico.

The NHC says that it could turn into a major hurricane by the time it reaches the Northeastern Gulf Coast. It will bring "the risk of life-threatening hurricane-force winds and damaging storm surge" to the north and northeast Gulf Coast.

Storm path attribution : LSEG

The companies have announced that Chevron Shell and Equinor are evacuating their staff from their offshore facilities.

Chevron evacuated all personnel not essential from the Gulf of Mexico platforms including Anchor, Big Foot Blind Faith Jack/St. Malo, Petronius, and Tahiti. Equinor announced that it would be evacuating all non-essential personnel from the Titan platform.

Shell shut down production on its Stones platform, curtailed its production at Appomattox and evacuated non-essential personnel from its assets located in the Mars Corridor as a precautionary step.

Both companies stated that the decisions made by their respective boards had not yet affected production.

Helene is the next storm on this list. According to AccuWeather private weather forecaster, Helene could landfall as a category 3 hurricane later this week and possibly strengthen into a category 4.

(source: Reuters)