NEW ORLEANS — Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) activated its Hurricane Response Team as Hurricane Ida made its way through the Gulf. The Hurricane Response Team continues to monitor offshore oil and gas operators in the Gulf as they return to platforms and rigs after the storm. The team works with offshore operators and other state and federal agencies until operations return to normal.
Based on data from offshore operator reports submitted as of 11:30 CDT today, personnel are still evacuated from a total of 41 production platforms, 7.32 percent of the 560 manned platforms in the Gulf of Mexico. Production platforms are the structures located offshore from which oil and gas are produced. Unlike drilling rigs, which typically move from location to location, production facilities remain in the same location throughout a project’s duration.
All non-dynamically positions rigs are currently operating in the Gulf. Rigs can include several types of offshore drilling facilities including jackup rigs, platform rigs, all submersibles and moored semisubmersibles.
A total of 2 dynamically positioned rigs remain off location. This number represents 13.33 percent of the 15 DP rigs currently operating in the Gulf. Dynamically positioned rigs maintain their location while conducting well operations by using thrusters and propellers. These rigs are not moored to the seafloor; therefore, they can move off location in a relatively short time frame. Personnel remain on-board and return to the location once the storm has passed.
As part of the evacuation process, personnel activate the applicable shut-in procedure, which can frequently be accomplished from a remote location. This involves closing the sub-surface safety valves located below the surface of the ocean floor to prevent the release of oil or gas, effectively shutting in production from wells in the Gulf and protecting the marine and coastal environments. Shutting in oil and gas production is a standard procedure conducted by industry for safety and environmental reasons.
From operator reports, it is estimated that approximately 23.19 percent of the current oil production in the Gulf of Mexico is shut in. BSEE estimates that approximately 34.33 percent of the gas production in the Gulf of Mexico is shut in. The production percentages are calculated using information submitted by offshore operators in daily reports. Shut-in production information included in these reports is based on the amount of oil and gas the operator expected to produce that day. The shut-in production figures therefore are estimates, which BSEE compares to historical production reports to ensure the estimates follow a logical pattern.
Facilities are currently being inspected. Once all standard checks have been completed, production from undamaged facilities will be brought back online immediately. Facilities sustaining damage may take longer to bring back online.
Crude oil inventories in Cushing, Oklahoma, totaled 32.9 million barrels (excluding pipeline fill and stocks in transit by water and rail) in the week ending September 10, which is a 42% decrease since the beginning of the year. Crude oil inventories at Cushing are now 26% lower than normal, based on the previous five-year (2016–2020) average for that time of year. The Cushing storage hub is the crude oil delivery point for the NYMEX West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude oil futures contract and is home to 14% of U.S. commercial tank and underground crude oil working storage capacity.
The storage withdrawals in Cushing are consistent with high crude oil inventory withdrawals elsewhere in the United States and globally in recent months. According to our latest Petroleum Supply Monthly, the decline of 35 million barrels (the equivalent of 1.2 million barrels per day) in June 2021 was the largest decline in U.S. crude oil inventory (including crude oil held in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve) since we began collecting this data in 1981. In general, inventories tend to decline when consumption exceeds production.
The 32.9 million barrels of crude oil in inventory on September 10 means Cushing had a storage capacity utilization of 43%. Before this year's decline in inventories, the most recent time that Cushing storage utilization had fallen that low was in late 2018, following disruptions on the Keystone Pipeline system (which extends from Canada through Cushing to export terminals on the Texas Gulf Coast) and after the Diamond Pipeline system (which runs from Cushing to Memphis, Tennessee) entered service.
Since April 2020, we have published U.S. crude oil inventory as a percentage of working U.S. storage capacity to calculate storage capacity utilization. To estimate current working storage capacity utilization, we compare weekly reported crude oil inventories with the latest available monthly refinery and tank farm storage capacity. The reported crude oil inventories exclude pipeline fill and estimated barrels in transit by tanker ship, barge, rail, or truck. These exclusions total 2.5 million barrels at Cushing in our latest estimate.
We base storage capacity utilization estimates on the ratio of reported inventories to working storage capacity, which we define as the difference in volume between the maximum safe fill capacity and the quantity below which pump suction is ineffective. Based on our latest Working and Net Available Shell Storage Capacity Report, Cushing has a storage capacity of 76.6 million barrels.
News 
Market Data 
Discover 
