Tropical Storm Francine strengthens, spurring oil shutdowns

Tropical Storm Francine strengthened as it moved north in the Gulf of Mexico, prompting oil drillers to evacuate crews and halt some offshore crude production, while the US Coast Guard warned shippers of approaching gale-force winds. 

Francine is expected to lash parts of the Gulf Coast with powerful winds and heavy rain as it heads for a Wednesday landfall as a full-blown hurricane, US government forecasters said in an 1 p.m. Houston-time advisory. The system located 450 miles (720 kilometers) south-southwest of Cameron, Louisiana, saw winds accelerate to 60 miles-per-hour from 50 mph earlier in the day. 

Chevron Corp., Exxon Mobil Corp. and Shell Plc are among the companies taking measures such as evacuating workers from vulnerable installations, suspending drilling activities, and shutting in some wells. The storm’s forecast path intersects with fields that account for roughly 125,000 barrels of crude and 300 million cubic feet of natural gas on a daily basis, according to Bloomberg calculations of data from the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management and the National Hurricane Center. 

On its expected track, Francine may rake nine major platforms, including Enchilada, Cerveza, Perdido and Hoover. That said, the storm probably won’t have a large impact on overall energy production, Chuck Watson, a disaster modeler with Enki Research, said in a social media post. 

Meanwhile, the US Coast Guard declared Port Condition X-Ray at Houston, Galveston and other key Texas harbors, a warning that rough weather is expected within 48 hours. One upside to Francine as it moves ashore is that it will bring much needed water to the parched Mississippi River, temporarily raising the fortune of shippers before dry conditions set in again. 

“Francine is forecast to be a hurricane when it reaches the northwestern Gulf coast on Wednesday or Wednesday night and there is an increasing likelihood of life-threatening storm surge inundation for portions of the Upper Texas and Louisiana coastlines,” Philippe Papin, a senior hurricane specialist at the center, said in a forecast.

This will be the third storm to hit the US mainland this year. It’s forecast to peak as Category 1 storm on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale with 85 mph winds. It may push a storm surge of 10 feet on shore in the area around Cameron. 

There is a chance it will grows stronger as it swirls over the Gulf’s unusually warm waters, which provides fuel to storms, said Adam Douty, a meteorologist at commercial-forecaster AccuWeather Inc. 

If the storm does significantly strengthen, it’s likely to happen mid-day Tuesday or Wednesday, said Ryan Truchelut, president of WeatherTiger LLC. As it nears the coastline, however, it could encounter cross winds, or wind shear, that would threaten to weaken it.