Tropical Storm Harvey is forecast to be a major hurricane by the time it arrives at the U.S. Gulf Coast, prompting some offshore operators to evacuate and the Port of Corpus Christi to secure oil and cargo docks.

Anadarko Petroleum Corp. (NYSE: APC) said on its website that it has safely removed all personnel and temporarily shut in production at its operated Boomvang, Gunnison, Lucius and Nansen facilities.

“These facilities will remain shut-in until the weather has cleared, and it is safe to return our people to these offshore locations. We will continue to track Harvey and are prepared to remove additional personnel and shut in other operated facilities in the Gulf if necessary,” the company said Aug. 23.

A hurricane warning was in effect for roughly 300 miles of Texas coastline from Port Mansfield, Texas, to Matagorda, Texas, as of 7 a.m. CT Aug. 24, according to the National Hurricane Center. A hurricane warning means that hurricane conditions are expected somewhere within the warning area within the next 36 hours.

Harvey had maximum sustained winds of 65 mph as of 10 a.m. CT Aug. 24.

Storm surges in Port Mansfield could rise to between five and seven feet and in Port Mansfield by two to four feet. The U.S. Coast Guard’s Vessel Traffic Services told Hart Energy that so far oil tanker traffic has not been affected by the storm.

The Port of Corpus Christi said tropical storm force winds and surge impacts are expected to begin Aug. 25 with landfall along the mid coast that night.

Royal Dutch Shell Plc (NYSE: RDS.A) has shut down its Perdido platform in the Gulf of Mexico and that ExxonMobil Corp. (NYSE: XOM) lowered production at its Hoover platform, analysts at Seaport Global Securities analysts said Aug. 24.

“Crude flows into the Texas ports will certainly be lessened,” Seaport said in an Aug. 24 report.

The storm’s affect on Texas Gulf Coast production underpinned a rally in crude prices on Aug. 23, Baird Energy Research said in an Aug. 24 report.

WTI enjoyed steady bids throughout the session “on speculation of potential production and refining interruption along the Texas coast from Tropical Storm Harvey. October WTI ended 1.2% higher at $48.41/bbl.”

KeyBank National Association said that depending on the severity of the storm, production, imports and refinery runs could fall by varying degrees in PADD 3 with the full effect spanning the next two storage reports.

Brad Heffern, an analyst at RBC Capital Markets, said that possible flooding along the Texas and Louisiana coasts and impact to Corpus Christi represent nearly half of U.S. refining capacity.

“Cracks typically increase with storm-related production outages as the impact on refinery runs is larger than the impact on demand,” Heffern said. “Previous storms to make landfall on the Gulf Coast have had varying degrees of impact on refining operations from smaller run cuts [Isaac, 2012 and Hermine, 2010] to larger shutdowns followed by reduced runs for several weeks [Gustav, Ike 2008],” he said. “We believe it is fair to assume a small portion of refining production will be scaled back as the storm makes impact, but we do not expect a large-scale impact.”

Darren Barbee can be reached at dbarbee@hartenergy.com.