(Adds fuel prices rising, total oil output could fall 6 mln
barrels)
By Erwin Seba
HOUSTON, Sept 15 (Reuters) - More than a fifth of U.S.
offshore oil production was shut and key exporting ports were
closed on Tuesday as a precaution ahead of Hurricane Sally's
landfall on the U.S. Gulf Coast, the second significant storm to
shutter oil and gas activity over the last month.
Slow-moving Sally weakened to a Category 1 hurricane on
Tuesday and is expected to maintain that strength with sustained
winds of 85 mile per hour (140 km per hour) through landfall by
early Wednesday, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said.
The storm's trajectory takes it through the prime U.S.
offshore production areas on a path toward western Alabama,
sparing some larger Gulf Coast refineries from high winds.
Royal Dutch Shell said it shut its Appomattox oil
platform about 80 miles off the coast of Louisiana, joining BP
, Chevron Corp and Equinor in closing
facilities less than one month after Hurricane Laura forced up
to 1.5 million barrels per day of output to close temporarily.
Nearly 396,000 bpd of offshore crude oil production and 25%,
or 685 million cubic feet per day (mmcfd), of natural gas output
were shut in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico, according to the U.S.
Interior Department.
Total oil production losses could reach 3 million to 6
million barrels over several days, estimated consultancy Rystad
Energy.
U.S. crude oil futures rose nearly 3% and gasoline
futures climbed 2.2% on Tuesday on the hurricane-related
oil production and refinery shut-ins.
The nation's sole offshore terminal, the Louisiana Offshore
Oil Port (LOOP), stopped loading tankers on Sunday, while the
port of New Orleans closed on Monday. That will cut off roughly
307,000 bpd of crude and 411,000 bpd of refined products,
according to Kpler data.
As of 10 a.m. CDT (1500 GMT) on Tuesday, Sally was about 55
miles (88 km) east of the mouth of the Mississippi River, and
crawling toward the northwest at 2 mph (3 kph).
Refiners in the region have wound down operations. Phillips
66 shut its Alliance oil refinery, which processes
255,600 bpd at a site along the Mississippi River on the coast
of Louisiana.
Shell cut production to minimum rates on Monday at its
227,400-bpd Norco, Louisiana, refinery. It declined immediate
comment on its Mobile, Alabama, chemical and oil refinery.
(Reporting by Erwin Seba, Gary McWilliams in Houston and Devika
Krishna Kumar in New York; Editing by Marguerita Choy and Jason
Neely)
