Offshore staff
HOUSTON — Six oil and gas fields in the Gulf of Mexico (GoM) have been shut after a leak at a Louisiana booster station halted two pipelines in the region, according to a Bloomberg report.
Yesterday Shell halted production at three US GoM deepwater platforms after a leak shut two pipelines connecting the platforms.
Shell Plc on Aug. 11 shut its Mars and Amberjack pipelines, which together can move as much as 500,000 bbl/d of oil from the GoM to the coast. That resulted in the closure of Shell’s Mars, Ursa and Olympus fields as well as Chevron Corp.’s Jack/St. Malo, Tahiti and Big Foot fields, the companies said.
Shell spokesperson Cindy Babski said in an email that both pipelines are expected to resume service today as the leak has been contained, Bloomberg reported. She didn’t provide an update on restarting production at the fields.
The outage comes at a time when global energy supplies are exceedingly tight. While US crude inventories have been cushioned by the government’s tapping of emergency oil reserves, stocks nevertheless remain below the five-year average. Supplies could tighten further, with the International Energy Agency forecasting that oil demand will accelerate this year.
The disruption of supplies in the GoM strengthened prices for Mars Blend crude, a regional sour crude benchmark. Meanwhile, GoM dry-gas production is down about 2.4%, the most since Aug. 2, according BloombergNEF. September gas futures traded in New York are up as much as 8.4% to a two-week high.
08.12.2022
