As a major hurricane approaches, oil companies are evacuating their staff from the Gulf of Mexico.

On Monday, U.S. producers of oil scrambled to evacuate their staff from offshore oil fields in the Gulf of Mexico as the second major storm to hit in two weeks is predicted to ravage them.

The U.S. National Hurricane Center stated that a potential Tropical Cyclone over the warm waters of the Gulf could rapidly intensify and become a major Hurricane with winds up to 115 mph (185 kph).

According to the NHC, the storm, called Helene, would hit the U.S. at a category 3 on the Saffir Simpson wind scale. It could bring "the risk of life-threatening surges and damaging hurricane force winds" to Florida Panhandle and the Northeastern Gulf Coast.

Storm path attribution : LSEG

BP, Chevron and Equinor have all begun evacuating their offshore staff. Shell has also halted production.

BP has shut down oil and gas production at its Na Kika, Thunder Horse and Argos platforms. It also reduced output on two other platforms: Atlantis and Argos. It said that employees are being removed both from the four platforms mentioned above and another called Mad Dog.

Chevron has announced that it is evacuating personnel from its Blind Faith and Petronius platforms and has halted production.

Anchor, Big Foot and Jack/St. Malo and Tahiti. It said that production levels on those platforms remain normal.

Equinor announced that it would be evacuating all non-essential personnel from the Titan platform. It said that production was not affected.

Occidental Petroleum stated in a blog post that it would implement "as necessary" safety procedures at its offshore operations. Talos Energy refused to comment on storm preparations.

Shell announced that it has halted some drilling operations, curtailed its production at the Appomattox site, and shut down its Stones platform. Staff from Mars, Olympus, and Ursa offshore installations are being evacuated. Shell reported that production at these three facilities continued.

Brad Reinhart, a NHC meteorologist, said that the system was expected to increase in size as it crossed the Gulf. The system's "fast-forward speed as it approaches coast will likely lead to further inland penetration of wind gusts over parts of the southeast United States after landfall."

(source: Reuters)