American Gulf producers cut output

HOUSTON, Oct 6 (Reuters): Oil and natural gas operators began evacuating staff and halting production at US Gulf of Mexico platforms on Thursday ahead of Tropical Storm Nate, the second storm in as many months to rattle the Gulf Coast energy corridor.

Nate, which has killed at least 10 people in Costa Rica and Nicaragua and caused intense rainfall, is forecast to scrape Honduras and Mexico, enter the Gulf and strengthen into a hurricane before making landfall this weekend in Louisiana, near several major refineries.

That path takes it through an area populated by offshore oil and natural gas platforms, which pump more than 1.6 million barrels of crude per day (bpd), about 17 per cent of US output, according to government data.

About 14.6 per cent of US Gulf oil production equaling 254,607 bpd was offline on Thursday, the US Department of the Interior's Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) said. About 6.4 per cent of natural gas output in the area also was shut.

Forecasts for Nate have shifted westward in the past 24 hours. The National Hurricane Center (NHC) had forecast on Wednesday that the storm would make landfall in the Florida panhandle.