BP has restarted production at its offshore Na Kika and Thunder Horse oil platforms in the Gulf of Mexico after redeploying previously evacuated staff, BP PLC said on Thursday.
BP halted production on the two platforms on Monday ahead of Hurricane Ian that made landfall in Florida on Wednesday.
Chevron had also evacuated personnel and shut its production at its Petronius and Blind Faith platforms in the Gulf ahead of the storm.
As of Thursday, 11 total Gulf of Mexico platforms had been evacuated, representing 2.11% of the total GOM capacity, according to the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement. Five rigs had been evacuated, representing 35% of the total in the GoM, and 3 DP rigs had been repositioned. A total of 157,706 bpd of oil production had been shut in as of Thursday, along with 128 MMCFD of gas.
A total of 9.12% of the GoM's oil production had been shut in since Thursday, along with 5.95% of the total gas production.
Hurricane Ian has so far claimed an unknown number of lives after heavy rains, strong winds, and widespread flooding devastated Florida. Nearly 2.6 million Florida residents are now without power, and natural gas futures sank about 3% on Thursday on the prospect of decreased demand.
Florida Power & Light reported on Thursday that parts of its system would need to be rebuilt, not restored, cautioning its customers that they should be prepared for "widespread, extended outages" as they assess the damage. FPL said that work was already underway to restore power to some clients where it was safe to do so.
Hurricane Ian has since weakened to a Category 1 storm, although some parts of Florida are still being hit.
By Julianne Geiger for Oilprice.com
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Julianne Geiger is a veteran editor, writer and researcher for Oilprice.com, and a member of the Creative Professionals Networking Group. More
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