“Personnel have been evacuated from a total of 299 production platforms, (or) 46.5 percent of the 643 manned platforms in the Gulf of Mexico,” the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) Hurricane Response Team, said in a statement. Separately, it said personnel were evacuated from another 11 drilling rigs at the Gulf - making up the total of 310.
ABC News reported that Laura had rapidly gained strength since Tuesday, growing into a "menacing Category 4 hurricane" with the potential for a 20-foot storm surge that forecasters said would be "unsurvivable" and capable of sinking entire communities. It added that authorities had implored coastal residents of Texas and Louisiana to flee.
The storm is targeting Texas just as the US oil industry steadies from demand destruction caused earlier in the year by the COVID-19 pandemic. The Energy Information Administration has reported a drawdown of nearly 30 million barrels from US crude stockpiles over the past five weeks, suggesting that refiners were near their typical summer time production of fuel despite life in the United States still being largely crimped by the COVID-19-related precautions. But the shutdown in Texas, which operates 47 out of the 135 refineries in the country, could deal a fresh blow to refinery demand for fuels.
