Occidental Petroleum Corp and Norwegian state-oil company Equinor ASA are removing non-essential workers from some Gulf of Mexico facilities ahead of Tropical Storm Cristobal, the companies said on Wednesday, according to a Reuters report.
Gulf of Mexico operations are continuing uninterrupted, the companies said.
Equinor will shut-in production at its Titan oil platform and remove remaining workers on Friday if the storm continues along its projected path, spokesman Hasting Stewart said.
Occidental is removing non-essential workers from some central Gulf of Mexico facilities, it said.
Other Gulf of Mexico operators, including Chevron Corp, Exxon Mobil Corp, BHP Petroleum, Royal Dutch Shell and Hess Corp, said on Wednesday they are monitoring the storm but have not evacuated workers so far.
Cristobal made landfall on the coast of Mexico on Wednesday and is moving inland over eastern Mexico, the U.S. National Hurricane Center, said in its latest advisory. The storm is expected to re-emerge over the southern Gulf of Mexico on Friday and move north, threatening the U.S. Gulf Coast.
The U.S. Energy Information Administration expects the Gulf of Mexico to account for 15% of total U.S. crude oil production in 2020, compared with 23% of total U.S. crude oil production in 2011, as onshore production growth continues to outpace offshore production growth.
Reuters – Reporting by Jennifer Hiller and Erwin Seba in Houston Editing by Chris Reese, Diane Craft and Will Dunham
