US companies measure damage to production by hurricane

Oil companies have begun the process of assessing the damage to their Gulf Coast and Gulf of Mexico facilities and are trying to figure out how many days, weeks, or months it will take to get production back up to normal.

As of Wednesday, 95 percent of gas and oil production in the Gulf is still shut down and nine refineries on the Gulf Coast are closed.

In addition, several pipelines the carry crude oil out of the Gulf region are shut down due to flooding, damage, and power outages, and the US Energy Department has said that Port Fourchon, where facilities that handle a large percentage of US crude oil and natural gas imports was both heavily damaged in the storm and is currently cut off by floodwater.

Most companies have declined to give any estimate of how long it will take to return to full production.

However, Murphy Oil Corp. has said that its facilities, including one that encountered the eye of the hurricane, had avoided serious damage, although 80,000 barrels per day of production are currently shut down.

Exxon Mobil Corp. also said that damage to most of its offshore facilities was limited as crews continued damage assessments. 45,000 barrels per day of Exxon Mobil’s crude oil production and 760 million cubic feet per day of its natural gas production are currently offline.

Chevron Corp., meanwhile, has said that it would not have damage estimates for several days. In all, around 7 percent of the US crude oil demand is shut down due to the effects of Katrina, and refineries with a combined capacity of nearly 2 million barrels per day are closed down.