Shell re-staffing four Gulf of Mexico assets

In the aftermath of Hurricane Ida, oil major Shell is redeploying its personnel to the U.S. Gulf of Mexico assets, which were evacuated ahead of the storm. Shell has started the redeployment process on a total of four assets so far.

Shell started returning its workers offshore last Sunday, starting with the Enchilada/Salsa and continuing with Auger on Tuesday.

Redeployment to the Appomattox platform started on Wednesday and to Mars on Thursday, according to Shell’s storm updates.

In the update on Thursday Shell said that, in addition to redeploying personnel to the Mars platform, it was also continuing redeployment to Enchilada/Salsa, Auger, and Appomattox assets. These assets, along with Ursa and Olympus, remain shut in.

When it comes to damages to Shell’s offshore assets, assessments continue at the West Delta-143 (WD-143) offshore facility.

Shell Pipeline’s South Pass 89 was re-staffed on Tuesday and Main Pass 69 asset on Wednesday and Shell is working to finalize the assessment of the platform and pipelines. A standup test will be conducted prior to the restart of the pipeline.

Shell also re-staffed Green Canyon 19 asset and completed assessments. The platform returned to service on Wednesday morning. Amberjack pipeline will be available for producers upstream of Green Canyon 19 with deliveries to Ship Shoal 332. On Thursday, the re-staffing of Shell Pipeline’s Ship Shoal 241 asset also started.

About 80 per cent of Shell-operated production in the Gulf of Mexico was still offline on Wednesday. Reuters reported on Friday that Shell had cancelled some export cargoes due to damage to offshore facilities from Hurricane Ida, signalling energy losses would continue for weeks.

According to the latest information from the U.S. Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE), personnel is still evacuated from a total of 71 production platforms, which is about 12.68 per cent of the 560 manned platforms in the Gulf of Mexico.

Furthermore, personnel is still evacuated from 4 out of 11 rigs in the Gulf and a total of 2 out of 15 dynamically positioned rigs remain off location.

It is estimated that approximately 76.48 per cent of the current oil production and approximately 77.25 per cent of the gas production in the Gulf of Mexico is still shut in.