The cyclone’s impact on oil and gas production has been greater than expected.

Santos said yesterday it was beginning to bring oil production at Mutineer/Exeter back on stream. Production at that project has been running at 25,000 barrels per day and Santos has estimated that up to 300,000 bbls of oil production had been postponed.

The Woodside-operated North West Shelf liquefied natural gas project was disrupted for less than a day but the Legendre and Cossack-Pioneer oil fields were shut down for about a week.

The floating production, storage and offloading vessel was back on station yesterday and production at Legendre was ramping up towards 9000 bpd.

It was expected the Cossack Pioneer FPSO, which handles up to 100,000 bopd from the Cossack, Wannea, Hermes and Lambert fields, would be reconnected late yesterday, according to a report in the Australian newspaper.

Woodside’s production forecasts are based on the assumption that each year three cyclones will interrupt output. But another big player, Apache, told the Australian it only allowed for one or two cyclones.

“It’s been some (cyclone) season. You usually factor in one or two cyclones but nothing to this extent – this year’s been a little different,” managing director Tim Wall said.

Apache saw its gas operations return to full production on Monday.

Last week, the storm knocked out telemetry on the company’s unmanned platforms, forcing shutdown of production – the third time this year that Apache’s operations have been suspended because of cyclones. More than 100 staff were evacuated from the company’s floating storage facility and Varanus Island gas-processing facility.

Production was back to normal by Monday. Most of Apache’s customers had received reduced supply, as gas already in the delivery systems was run down.

Meanwhile, Dow Jones Newswires reports that the BHP Billiton-operated offshore Griffin oil and gas project is still offline in the wake of Glenda.

The Griffin facility is “at anchor and conducting reconnection preparations”, a BHPB spokeswoman told the agency. Griffin, which is part-owned by ExxonMobil, produces about 10,600 bbls of oil equivalent a day.

BHPB is waiting for calmer weather to reconnect the field as the Bureau of Meteorology has forecast “adverse conditions” later this week.

The Bureau says there is a “high” probability a current low-pressure system will develop into a cyclone today or tomorrow, potentially posing further threats to the northwest.