Image from the National Weather Service

The National Hurricane Center has reported that Tropical Storm Dolly entered the Gulf of Mexico early July 21 after crossing over the Yucatan Peninsula. The NHC is forecasting the storm to being strengthening and could reach a Category I or II status with winds in excess of 85 mph before making landfall somewhere on the Texas coast before the weekend. According to federal officials, four platforms and one rig in the western Gulf of Mexico have been evacuated.

Shell USA, a subsidiary of Royal Dutch /Shell, posted this statement on its website: “Given the forecast for Tropical Storm Dolly, Shell began evacuations of personnel from some of its Gulf of Mexico West operations area on Sunday, July 20, resulting in the safe evacuation of approximately 125 people.  We are planning to evacuate approximately 60 additional personnel on Monday, July 21. No further evacuations are planned at this time after today and based on current information and forecast, we do not expect any impact on Shell operated production in the Gulf of Mexico.” 

The U.S. Minerals Management Service has reported that, based on data from offshore operator reports submitted as of 11:30 a.m. CST July 21, personnel have been evacuated from four  production platforms—0.6% of the 717 manned platforms in the Gulf. The agency also reported that personnel from one rig have also been evacuated. This represents 0.8% of the 123 rigs now operating in the Gulf.

The MMS also reported that no oil or gas has been reported shut-in. The daily oil production from the Gulf of Mexico as of January 2008 was 1.3 million barrels.  Estimated gas production from the Gulf of Mexico is 7.7 billion cubic feet of gas per day. 

The NHC reported that weather models project the storm will move across the southwestern Gulf and strike somewhere from northern Mexico to Corpus Christi before Saturday. Maximum sustained winds were near 50 mph with higher gusts but the NHC is forecasting the strong to strengthen as the center of the storm moves over the Gulf. Forecasters said interests in the western Gulf should monitor the progress of the storm.

Dolly’s current path takes it north of the Bay of Campeche, where Petroleos Mexicanos produces about 1.07 million barrels of oil per day. JAS