Oil and natural gas production in the Gulf of Mexico has been largely shut off as Hurricane Ike looms, the US Department of Energy said Thursday, adding however that the storm was likely to spare most Gulf energy installations.
"Current projections show it (Ike) missing most of the Gulf's oil and gas installations and hitting the Texas coastline sometime late tomorrow," the department said in a statement.
"Some 95.9 percent of the Gulf of Mexico's 1.3 million barrels per day of oil production and 73.1 percent of its 7.4 billion cubic feet per day of natural gas production has been turned off," it said.
Some Strategic Petroleum Reserve facilities in the region were being evacuated, it said.
"Big Hill and West Hackberry are following mandatory evacuation orders that have been issued (Hurricane Alert Level 4) for those areas. Both sites are locked down and evacuated, except for the Storm Watch Teams," the department said in a statement. Big Hill is in Jefferson County, Texas and West Hackberry in Cameron Parish, Louisiana.
Just a week ago the US government decided to release crude stocks from its strategic reserve after the threat posed by Hurricane Gustav halted energy production in the Gulf of Mexico. But Gustav largely spared US energy facilities in the Gulf of Mexico.
At 1500 GMT authorities had declared a hurricane warning from Morgan City Louisiana to Baffin Bay, Texas, the US National Hurricane Center in Miami said.
Packing sustained winds of 100 miles (160 kilometers) per hour, Ike's center was churning about 470 miles (760 kilometers) east-southeast of Galveston, Texas, moving west-northwest at 10 miles (17 kilometers) per hour.
Ike is forecast to strengthen to at least category three status before hitting the US coast, the NHC warned.
