MOSCOW (MRC) -- In advance of two tropical storms headed toward the US Gulf of Mexico, upstream operators have shut in 13% of the region's total oil production and more than 4% of its natural gas, reported S&P Global with reference to the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement's (BSEE) statement Aug. 22.
Total shut-in crude amounts to about of 240,785 b/d of oil, along with 19,000 Mcf/d of natural gas, or 4.39% of total US Gulf gas production, BSEE said.
Six producing platforms, or just under 1% of all those in the US Gulf, have been evacuated, along with four rigs, which are 40% of all rigs in the Gulf, the agency said.
In the past 24 hours, BP, Shell and Chevron - three of the US Gulf's biggest producers - said they have shut down production on assorted platforms in the projected paths of the storms.
Some independents are also evacuating crews from platforms ahead of the storms, which should strike the US Gulf Coast by mid-week.
The US Gulf produces currently about 1.85 million b/d of oil and about 2.7 Bcf/d of natural gas.
At 2 p.m. ET, Laura was projected to have mostly crossed over Puerto Rico and headed northwest towards the Louisiana coast, while at about 1 p.m., Marco was forecast to be near the tip of the Yucatan Peninsula and headed northwest for the southeast Texas coast, according to maps by the US National Hurricane Center.
Both storms are predicted to become hurricanes as they near the coast, but currently only Laura is projected to remain at that wind speed (minimum 74 mph) as it is about to make landfall, NHC maps showed.
Laura is targeted to make landfall around Aug. 26. Marco if forecast to be downgraded to a tropical storm prior to striking shore late Aug. 25 or early Aug. 26.
As MRC informed earlier, on 18 August, 2020, Chevron Corp reported a fire at its 112,229-barrel-per-day (bpd) Pasadena, Texas facility. "At this time, flames, smoke may be noticeable to the community. We are coordinating with local officials, and working to resolve the issue as soon as possible," the company reported on August, 19.
We remind that US-based Phillips 66 remains open to developing another ethane cracker for its Chevron Phillips Chemical (CP Chem) joint venture, the refiner's CEO said in March 2018.
Ethylene and propylene are feedstocks for producing polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP).
According to MRC's DataScope report, PE imports to Russia dropped in January-June 2020 by 7% year on year to 328,000 tonnes. High density polyethylene (HDPE) accounted for the main decrease in imports. At the same time, PP imports into Russia rose in the first six months of 2020 by 21% year on year to 105,300 tonnes. Propylene homopolymer (homopolymer PP) accounted for the main increase in imports.
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