“After completing necessary inspections, both the Mad Dog and Genesis fields have safely resumed production,” BHP said.

“The West Cameron 76, Starlifter, Green Canyon 18-Ewing Bank 988, and Green Canyon 60 fields are in various stages of start-up and are expected to resume in the next few days and weeks. This schedule is dependent on the resumption of third-party downstream infrastructure, including pipelines, onshore terminals and other facilities.”

BHP Billiton’s share of production from the GoM for the 12-month period ended June 30 was about 25,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day As of October 10, its production level had returned to about 40% of this rate, the company said.

The facility most damaged by Hurricane Rita was the Typhoon tension leg oil platform moored about 165km from New Orleans, which suffered severe damage after being cut from its mooring.

The production platform had been producing 40,000 barrels of oil and 60 million cubic feet of gas per day.

“The timing of production resumption from the Typhoon and Boris oil and gas fields is unclear,” BHP said.

In the current financial year, production through Typhoon was expected to be almost 5% of the company’s total oil and gas production.

Typhoon field operator, Chevron, has formed two teams. An investigation team has been charged with determining why the facility was lost and a restoration team is to recommend how best to restore Typhoon-Boris production.

“It is too early to speculate on the findings and recommendations from either team,” BHP said.

“We expect the investigation team to take several weeks and the restoration team to take several months to complete their work.”

BHP Billiton has property damage and business interruption insurance for its Gulf of Mexico assets, but the likely recovery from insurance is not known at this stage.

While other BHP GoM exploration and development drilling operations have resumed, Hurricanes Katrina and Rita have delayed all well schedules by four to six weeks.

“The effect that these delays will have on production in future years is difficult to assess at this time,” BHP said.

The company said it did not believe the hurricanes would affect the first-oil schedules for its Atlantis or Neptune developments.

The Atlantis field is the next BHP Billiton development to come onstream. This is still anticipated during the third quarter of 2006.

But flow-on effects from further delays with third-party service providers to other projects or unusually severe marine conditions over the next 12 months could still affect operations.

“For the current financial year, BHP Billiton’s net oil and gas production is likely to be as much as 10 million boe lower than previous guidance,” the company said.

“Approximately 4.5 million boe of this is associated with GoM operations, which assumes loss of production from Typhoon for the balance of the fiscal year.”

Unplanned outages in Australia account for a further 1.5 million boe of lower production. The balance relates to BHP’s production sharing and risk sharing contracts, whereby increasing oil prices reduce the company’s production share.