THE WALL STREET JOURNAL/ DOW JONES NEWSWIRES: Shell: Bulk Of US Gulf Oil, Gas Output Back Up Within A Wk: “Royal Dutch/Shell Group should have the bulk of the oil and natural gas output shut down by Hurricane Ivan back in production within a week, a company official said Tuesday.” (ShellNews.net)

DOW JONES NEWSWIRES

Posted 27 October 2004

AUSTIN -- Royal Dutch/Shell Group (RD,SC) should have the bulk of the oil and natural gas output shut down by Hurricane Ivan back in production within a week, a company official said Tuesday.

"The bulk is on stream within a week," Raoul Restucci, chief executive for the Americas for Shell Exploration & Production, said at an industry conference in Austin.

Shell currently has some 70,000 to 80,000 barrels of oil equivalent of daily production off line in the Gulf of Mexico, and a small amount may remain shut down until mid-January, Restucci said.

The cumulative volume of lost production ultimately will come out to be 9 million to 10 million barrels of oil equivalent, Restucci said. The company typically expects to lose 5 million to 8 million barrels of oil equivalent to hurricanes each year.

The losses come at a bad time, as prices for oil and gas have soared. But Restucci said the volumes ultimately will be produced.

"It was pretty intense," he said of the storm.

Shell is spending $600 million to $700 million a year on exploration in the Americas. Restucci expects that figure to hold if not rise next year, amid aggressive spending on exploration in North America over the next two years.

-By John M. Biers, Dow Jones Newswires; 713-547-9214; john.biers@dowjones.com