Helene shuts in about 16pc of US Gulf oil: Update 2

Adds daily spot market crude pricing information.

Tropical storm Helene, which is expected to develop into a hurricane on Wednesday before coming ashore in Florida Thursday, has shut in about 16pc of US Gulf of Mexico oil output.

Around 284,000 b/d of US offshore oil output was off line as of 12:30pm ET, according to the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE), while 208mn cf/d of natural gas production, or 11pc of the region's output, was also off line. Operators have so far evacuated workers from four offshore production platforms.

Helene was last about 175 miles east-southeast of Cozumel, Mexico, according to a 2pm ET advisory from the US National Hurricane Center, with maximum sustained winds of 45 mph. The current forecast has the center of Helene entering the eastern Gulf of Mexico Wednesday morning and moving north-northeast toward a possible landfall near the Florida panhandle region late Thursday. By then it will have strengthened into a major hurricane, with winds of at least 111mph, according to forecasts.

While the storm will largely pass to the east of most offshore oil and gas production areas, companies started suspended some operations on Sunday.

Chevron began evacuating workers and shutting in its Blind Faith and Petronius platforms. "While we are also transporting nonessential personnel from our four other Chevron-operated Gulf of Mexico platforms, production there remains at normal levels," the company said.

Shell said Monday it had shut in output from its Stones facility and curtailed production from the Appomattox platform, both off the coast of Louisiana. The company was also relocating non-essential workers from its assets in the Mars corridor, and suspending some drilling operations.

Equinor said it was shutting down the Titan oil platform as a precaution.

BP had started to shut in production at its Na Kika and Thunder Horse platforms, southeast of New Orleans, and was curtailing output from its Argos and Atlantis facilities, as well as removing non-essential staff.

Offshore spot prices rise slightly

The Na Kika platform is connected by pipeline to the Shell-operated Delta pipeline system, which carries Heavy Louisiana Sweet (HLS) crude to shore. During trading on Tuesday, October HLS rose by 20¢/bl relative to the light sweet crude benchmark in Cushing, Oklahoma, to an 80¢/bl discount. The October US pipeline trade month ends Wednesday.

The Thunder Horse platform production is marketed as part of a sour crude stream by the same name that is priced at the Louisiana Offshore Oil Pipeline's (LOOP) facility in Clovelly, Louisiana, where it has dedicated underground cavern storage, as does Mars. On Tuesday, Thunder Horse traded at a 50¢/bl discount to the Cushing benchmark, after wide discussion circled a 40¢/bl discount in the prior session. Medium sour secondary benchmark Mars tightened its gap to the Cushing basis by 30¢/bl to a volume-weighted average discount of roughly $1.55/bl.

Crude production from the 140,000 b/d capacity Argos platform feeds into the Cameron Highway Oil Pipeline System (CHOPS), which carries Southern Green Canyon (SGC) crude to the Texas Gulf coast. Argos platform serves the Mad Dog 2 field development that came online last year. Atlantis production also feeds into SGC.

No SGC transactions were reported on Tuesday. It was offered as low as $1/bl under the Cushing benchmark, lower than trade at a 50¢/bl discount in the prior session.

US offshore production was disrupted earlier this month when Hurricane Francine made landfall as a category 1 storm. Up to 42pc of production was offline at one point.

The offshore Gulf of Mexico accounts for around 15pc of total US crude output and 5pc of US natural gas production.

By Stephen Cunningham