Shutting the 407 oil wells in the Campeche Sound will result in a production loss of 2.7 million barrels of oil and 2.6 billion cubic feet of natural gas a day, Pemex said. Of that, about 1.7 million barrels of oil a day is exported from three Gulf ports, where Pemex was loading the final tankers Monday morning before shutting them as well.

By MARK STEVENSON, Associated Press Writer

...2.6 billion cubic feet of natural gas a day, Pemex said.

Disturbance 92L needs to be watched

An area of disturbed weather associated with a tropical wave a few hundred miles northeast of the Lesser Antilles Islands, "Invest 92L", has changed little in organization today. Wind shear is about 5-10 knots in this region, and an upper-level anticyclone has formed over 92L. This is a very favorable environment for intensification, should 92L start to get organized. The disturbance has the potential to develop into a tropical depression by Wednesday. It is moving west to west-northwest at 15-20 mph, and will be near the central Bahamas by Wednesday, and the east coast of Florida by Friday. It does not appear that any troughs strong enough to recurve 92L will swing by until Saturday at the earliest.

Yahoo/AP

This is the kind of detail we like.



If you are watching this thread, thanks!

Pemex Shuts Campeche Sound Operations Ahead of Dean
By Thomas Black

Aug. 20 (Bloomberg) -- Petroleos Mexicanos, the state-owned oil company, ordered a shutdown of offshore oil operations in the Campeche Sound and an evacuation of workers to prepare for the arrival of Hurricane Dean.

The shutdown will affect 407 wells with daily output of 2.65 million barrels of oil and 2.63 billion cubic feet of natural gas, the company said in an e-mailed statement today. Pemex produced an average of 3.21 million barrels of oil and 6.19 billion cubic feet of gas a day in June.

Pemex said 13,317 workers were evacuated and another 1,037 were in the process of being taken off installations. Waves of up to 22 feet are expected in the region, the company said.

The company said the disruption might prompt it to declare force majeure on oil contracts with international customers. Force majeure is a contract provision declared when an event beyond a company's control prevents it from meeting its obligations.

The last time Pemex had to shut down its platforms in the Campeche Sound was in July 2005 because of Hurricane Emily.

This seems incongruous with the precipitous 10% drop in natural gas prices(most in 4 years) that occurred today, apparently due to the subsidence of the threat that Dean was posing to offshore NG fields.

Judging from their track record, well ... do you think thye'll be right this time?

It'll hit the east coast of Yucatan some time after midnight. They're having communications problems with the recon plane, so there's no current info on it. Judging from this, though, it's probably a Category 5 storm right now:



GOES Floater RGB

Cancun rebuilt, reborn, after Hurricane Wilma
Mexican government busy master-planning future resort destinations

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13098773/

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Oil fell on Monday on forecasts that Hurricane Dean would miss U.S. Gulf of Mexico refineries and offshore production platforms.

Crude erased some earlier losses on news that Mexico, a top U.S. oil exporter, shut in over 80 percent of output as the storm churned toward its Bay of Campeche production center.

At the speed it is moving I would expect it to be a strong 2 or maybe a 3 when it returns to water on the far side, then things will get interesting. If it zooms back up from warm water you are facing massive potential damage to the Mexican offshore oil fields. They don't have the wherwithal to rebuild as we did after Katrina, and even with our resources a lot of wells were permanently shut in because the costs to reopen them exceeded their potential output values.

Actually, Dean will hit the beach way south of Cancun and Cozumel.