Over 16% US Gulf oil, 24% offshore natgas output remains shut in

HOUSTON (ICIS)–Over 16% of the US crude oil production and 24% of the offshore natural gas output remained shut on Wednesday, according to US Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE).

The following table shows the number of platforms and rigs evacuated, including the total of oil and natural gas that have been shut in.

	Total	%
Platforms evacuated	32	5.89
Rigs evacuated	0	0
Oil shut in (bbl/day)	294,414	16.18
Gas shut in (bcf/day)	541.12	24.27

Source: BSEE

US supply worries have persisted following the production disruption caused by Hurricane Ida in late August.

The percentage of oil and natural gas production shut in has continued to slowly decrease. Crude oil has decreased .46% while offshore gas production has decreased 1.15% from Tuesday.

US crude oil inventories decreased 3.5m barrels for the week ended on 17 September, according to the Energy Information Administration’s (EIA) latest report.

Inventories are about 8% below the five-year average for this time of year at 414m barrels.

On Monday, Shell announced that its WD-143 platform will remain offline until the end of the year due to “significant structural damage” from Hurricane Ida.

Offshore oil wells account for 17% of the nation’s crude oil production, while federal Gulf of Mexico production is about 3% of total US dry natural gas production.

Total working gas in storage is 3.01 trillion cubic feet (tcf), down nearly 17% from last year, said EIA in its storage report.