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Up to 52 platforms were destroyed and 62 were badly damaged by Hurricane Ike, according to the US government's latest data.
Up to 52 platforms were destroyed and 62 were badly damaged by Hurricane Ike, according to the US government’s latest data, raising insurance losses for the offshore industry over the current estimates of $1.5bn.
The US Minerals Management Service said 52 of the region’s 3,800 offshore oil and gas platforms were blown away by Hurricane Ike and three jack-up rigs were destroyed.
It said around 1,450 platforms were exposed to the hurricane winds and waves, of which 29 platforms were extensively damaged, requiring up to six months of repair work, and 33 had moderate damage.
The platforms destroyed would have had a combined production capacity of 13,300 barrels of oil and 90m cu ft of gas per day, so they are small in comparison to some of the large deepwater facilities, but some will have been transport hubs for other facilities.
Some of the damaged platforms would also be export hubs and so are six gas transmission pipelines damaged by Hurricane Ike.
Oil companies are slowly turning on their taps and increasing production from Gulf of Mexico facilities, but some operators said their efforts to restart facilities were hampered by damage on third party installations.
The MMS said around 62%, or 800,000 barrels per day of the region’s oil output, which represents 1.3m bpd, is still shut in and 57% of the Gulf’s 7.4bn cu ft per day of gas production is closed down.
This means the US will need to import around 5m barrels of extra oil per week, or almost five suezmax tankers, to meet refining demand and reduce the slide in the nation’s commercial stocks.
The Gulf of Mexico is a key addition to the US’ economy as it represents a quarter of the country’s own oil production and 15% of its gas output.
Insurance losses from the destroyed and damaged facilities continues to climb, but this week Risk Management Solutions told Lloyd’s List that losses have so far amounted to $1.5bn. This was based on the MMS’ earlier estimate of 49 destroyed platforms.
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