After implementing severe-weather protocols and evacuating workers from four offshore platforms in the Gulf of Mexico on Thursday as tropical depression Claudette neared the area, Chevron said on Saturday that the workers had returned to all of the platforms.
Production at the Tahiti platform was stopped because of the storm, but has since resumed. A notice on Chevron’s website indicates that production at its other Gulf of Mexico facilities continued at normal levels.
Occidental Petroleum and Equinor ASA also removed staff from platforms in the Gulf. Equinor shut production at its Titan platform, off the coast of Louisiana. Production was not affected at BP, BHP, Royal Dutch Shell and Murphy Oil platforms. Fieldwood Energy evacuated its South Marsh Island 128 platform, causing a disruption to its natural gas transfers to onshore facilities.
The first storm of the year to hit oil-producing regions of the US Gulf of Mexico, Claudette caused flash flooding and tornadoes that killed 12 people in Alabama and destroyed dozens of houses. Its effects were also felt in Georgia, North and South Carolina, Florida and Louisiana. The National Hurricane Center predicts that Claudette will strengthen back to tropical storm status on Monday over eastern North Carolina as it moves out to the Atlantic Ocean.
