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 Business News | July 2005 
Nation Suspends Oil Exports
 Wire services
| | The owner of a petrol station inspects the damage caused by hurricane Emily alongside the Playa del Carmen-Tulum road, 70 km from Cancun. Photo: Omar Torres) |
Mexico has suspended nearly all of its crude oil exports after evacuating more than 15,000 workers from offshore oil platforms in the Gulf of Mexico, state oil monopoly Petroleos Mexicanos announced on Monday.
Pemex suspended 1.87 million barrels of crude oil exports and halted daily production of 2.95 million barrels of oil per day, in addition to 1,600 million cubic feet (45 million cubic meters) of gas, Pemex director general Luis Ramírez Corzo said.
Operations were expected to resume on Wednesday in the Gulf, with production fully restored by Friday, Pemex predicted.
About 80 percent of Pemex's crude oil exports are sent to the United States, making Mexico one of the top foreign oil suppliers to its northern neighbor.
Mexico also had closed its two main crude oil loading ports in the Gulf of Mexico and evacuated more than 15,000 employees from its oil rigs in the Bay of Campeche before Hurricane Emily swirled across the Gulf of Mexico on Monday.
Two deaths were reported over the weekend as one of 26 helicopters being used to evacuate the oil rigs crashed on Saturday while trying to land on a platform in high winds, killing the pilot and co-pilot.
The port of Dos Bocas was closed Monday, the Mexico's Communications and Transportation Department said. The offshore terminal at Cayo Arcas closed over the weekend, while the port at Pajaritos remained open.
Offshore operations in the area account for about twothirds of the 3.4 million barrels a day of crude oil produced by Mexican state oil monopoly Petroleos Mexicanos, or Pemex.
The area includes Pemex's giant oilfield Cantarell, which produces more than 2 million barrels a day.
The National Hurricane Center predicted Emily would strengthen over the Gulf's warm waters and likely make landfall again on Mexico's northern Gulf coast Tuesday or early Wednesday.
The storm could still hit the southern tip of Texas. More than 40 rigs and platforms had been evacuated on the Gulf's U.S.-regulated production area, mostly off the coast of Texas, according to a survey of 12 private companies by the Minerals Management Service of the U.S. Interior Department.
Those evacuations represented only a small fraction of the manned platforms and drilling rigs operating on the U.S. outer continental shelf.
"It just depends where Emily goes. If she heads farther north, you are going to see more shut-in production," said Caryl Fagot, a public affairs specialist at MSS.
Most of Mexico's 1.8 million barrels a day of crude exports are shipped from the three Gulf coast ports. Pemex also exports some crude from the Pacific coast port of Salina Cruz, which was open.
The center of the Emily was passing just north of Pemex's main oil deposits, and it was unclear what damage the storm had caused if any.
Pemex, which refines about 1.6 million barrels a day of crude oil, said the storm hasn't affected its supplies of fuel, either in the region affected by the hurricane or in the rest of the country. |
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