Oil producers and drillers in the U.S. portion of the Gulf of Mexico may be spared the worst of Hurricane Dean, but offshore operations in Mexican waters are still very much in the line of fire.
On Sunday, Mexico's state-owned oil company, Petroleos Mexicanos, or Pemex, said it began evacuating 13,360 workers from offshore facilities in the Bay of Campeche as forecasts predicted the first Atlantic hurricane of 2007 would hit the Mexican coast by mid-week.
Using an armada of ships and helicopters, Pemex said it expected to conclude the evacuations today.
The Bay of Campeche is a key oil producing region, with an estimated 2 million barrels a day of production. It also is responsible for about 1.5 million barrels per day of refined product exports, most of which come to the U.S.
Both are at risk as Dean approaches, said industry analyst Dan Pickering in a morning note to investors.
Also at risk are a few dozen rigs under contract with Pemex that are owned by U.S drilling companies, including Houston's Pride International and Noble Corp.
Houston drillers said they began evacuating crews from rigs in Mexican waters over the weekend. By Monday morning, they sad they had either concluded or were still in the process of removing people from the rigs.
Pride International, with 14 rigs, has the biggest exposure of any U.S. drilling contractor in Mexican waters. Noble is next with eight rigs, followed by Diamond Offshore Drilling with three and Hercules Offshore with two.
For the Houston firms, Dean poses a threat to the workers aboard rigs and to billions of dollars in equipment.
But with Dean expected to weaken as it crosses the YucatanPeninsula, the drillers were confident their rigs would not sustain significant damage.
Upgrades since hurricanes Katrina and Rita tore through the Gulf in 2005, including raising platforms higher above the water's surface, also have made rigs better equipped to battle the big storms, they said.
"I think the industry as a whole is significantly better prepared than it was in 2005," said Lee Ahlstrom, head of investor relations at Sugar Land-based Noble.
In the U.S. portion of the Gulf of Mexico, oil companies and offshore drillers were continuing to monitor the storm but appeared to slow evacuations as forecasts had Dean aiming toward Mexico.
"Due to high confidence in the Hurricane Dean storm track over the next several days, we are suspending any further personnel evacuations at this time," Shell Oil said in a statement this morning.
Several drillers said they hoped to return evacuated workers to rigs by late this week or sooner.
By Monday, Transocean, the world's largest offshore driller, had evacuated 400 workers from nine drilling units in the Gulf of Mexico, all of them in U.S. waters.
"If Hurricane Dean goes into the Mexican coast, we will resume operations as quickly as possible," the company said in a statement.
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LatinPetroleum.com, www.latinpetroleum.com, Mexico news, 20.August.2007, Source: Brett Clanton, Houston Chronicle 
