Oil companies idle production as US Gulf Coast braces for hurricane
HOUSTON (Reuters) – Offshore platforms and one refinery along the U.S. Gulf Coast shut down on Sunday as they prepared for a second hurricane strike in less than a month.
Phillips 66 began shutting its 255,600 barrel-per-day (bpd) Alliance, Louisiana, refinery as Tropical Storm Sally was forecast to pass just west of the plant, 24 miles (38 km) south of New Orleans.
Other refineries in east Louisiana were monitoring the storm, forecast to become a category 2 hurricane with winds of 100 mph (161 kph), early on Tuesday.
From Saturday, energy companies began shutting offshore production as they evacuated workers in the path of the storm, located 195 miles (315 km) east-southeast of the mouth of the Mississippi River, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said.
