Oil prices slip as tropical cyclone looms over Gulf of Mexico

Norway’s Shell, Chevron and Equinor have all begun evacuating staff from offshore facilities as the threat of a potential Tropical System 9 cyclone intensifies as it moves towards the Gulf Coast, where the storm could become a hurricane until wednesday

Earlier on Monday, Chevron completed the evacuation of non-essential personnel from facilities in the Gulf of Mexico, including the Anchor, Big Foot, Blind Faith, Jack, Petronius and Tahiti platforms.

Shell said on Sunday that it was monitoring the storm’s track for potential impact on its Gulf of Mexico assets and operations and was preparing to shut down production at two platforms – Stones and Appomattox. Shell also evacuated non-essential personnel from its Mars Corridor assets as a precaution.

Equinor evacuated non-essential personnel from the Titan platform.

Tropical storm and hurricane watches have been issued for Cuba and parts of Mexico, with the National Hurricane Center (NHC) warning that the tropical cyclone system that was near western Cuba on Monday is expected to intensify over the next 72 hours.

As of noon Wednesday (ET), the NHC said there was a 90% chance this storm will develop over the next couple of days, with a harris county meteorologist saying it will likely escalate to a category 4 hurricane as it moves through the warmer waters of the GoM.

Oil prices responded more to European economic data on Monday than to the potential disruption of oil supplies from the Gulf of Mexico or the escalation of conflict in the Middle East.

At 4:13 pm ET, Monday, Brent crude traded down 0.59% at $74.05, while the US benchmark WTI was trading down 0.47% at $70.53.

By Tom Kool for Oilprice.com

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