Meanwhile, BHP Billiton has revealed that its Typhoon tension leg oil platform in the Gulf of Mexico, about 165km from New Orleans, has suffered severe damage in the storm, after it was cut from its mooring.
The production platform, operated by Chevron, has been found and is being secured, said BHP in a statement. The platform was producing 40,000 barrels of oil and 60 million cubic feet of gas per day.
Transocean Inco also reported damage to a deepwater semi-submersible rig, which was disabled during Katrina and came adrift during Rita.
Rita hit the Texas and Lousiana border on Saturday morning with winds of nearly 200 kilometres per hour, after sweeping through the offshore production rigs in the Gulf of Mexico. It missed the Houston refining hub – the largest concentration of refineries in the US.
Seven of the 15 refineries closed before Rita hit now say they expect to restart production soon, while major pipelines and the country’s only offshore oil port have already resumed operations.
Company reports suggest the Category 3 storm has damaged at least five refineries in Port Arthur, Texas and Lake Charles in Louisiana, with two saying it could take up to four weeks to restart.
Valero Energy Corp’s 250,000 barrel per day refinery and Total’s 233,000 barrel per day refinery, both in Port Arthur, will remain shut for between two and four weeks, said the companies.
The remaining three refineries reported loss of power and wind damage.
Louisiana’s biggest power company, Entergy Corp, said it was assessing damage to its system and could not yet say how long it would remain offline.
Meanwhile, four other refineries, accounting for 880,000 bpd, are still shutdown following Hurricane Katrina’s arrival one month ago.
Crude oil output from the Gulf remained completely shut in for the third straight day, accounting for 1.527 million barrels per day, said the US Minerals Management Service yesterday.
The US government also reported that about 78.4%, or 7.8 billion cubic feet of natural gas, was also shut in by Rita as of Monday.
