iwon.com/Dow Jones Newswires: Shell Delays Repairs To Mars Platform To 2005 1Q: “Repairs to the mammoth Mars oil and gas production platform in the Gulf of Mexico will be postponed from the originally scheduled date of this coming week until the first quarter of 2005, according to Shell Exploration & Production Co.” (ShellNews.net)
Monday November 1, 04
NEW YORK (Dow Jones)--Repairs to the mammoth Mars oil and gas production platform in the Gulf of Mexico will be postponed from the originally scheduled date of this coming week until the first quarter of 2005, according to Shell Exploration & Production Co.
There were earlier reports that the company was considering postponing the repairs, which would take about two weeks. The move may come as a relief to the severely squeezed U.S. oil and natural gas market, which is suffering from daily outages of more than 300,000 barrels of oil and 1.2 billion cubic feet of gas a day as a result of damage caused by Hurricane Ivan.
The repairs to the tension legs on the Mars platform would have shut in an additional 100,000 barrels a day of crude and 170 million cubic feet of natural gas for two weeks or 1.4 million barrels and 2.38 Bcf over the course of the repairs.
"Although the flexjoints are ready for installation, in the current resource constrained environment in the Gulf due to Hurricane Ivan repairs and to not further disrupt crude oil production from the Gulf of Mexico, we made the decision to delay the repair operation until late first quarter of 2005," said Frank Glaviano, Regional Production Director in a press release. "The temporary repairs are operating safely and effectively. The weather conditions during the latter part of first quarter 2005 will be conducive to efficiently and safely completing the repairs. This delay is in the best interest of everyone."
Shell Exploration is a unit of the Royal Dutch/Shell Group (RD SC).
-By Spencer Jakab, Dow Jones Newswires; 201-938-4377;