Big energy companies hunker down ahead of the storm.
INDUSTRIAL activity slowed along the Gulf Coast on Thursday as energy companies brought workers in from oil platforms and ships evacuated ports ahead of Hurricane Harvey.
About 5 percent of Gulf oil platforms were evacuated by 11:30 a.m. Thursday, the most recent update available, and almost 10 percent of all Gulf oil production was temporarily cut off. That’s the equivalent of 167,000 barrels of oil a day, according to the U.S. Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement. Of more than 700 manned platforms in the Gulf, at least 39 reported being evacuated.
The eye of the storm is likely to make landfall closer to the Corpus Christi region, where there’s an assortment
of refining and petrochemical facilities. One of the largest there is Valero Energy, which said Thursday it is preparing for the storm.
Also prepping in Corpus Christi were the pilots who guide large ships in and out of the port. The Aransas-Corpus Christi Pilots halted activity after the last outbound ship left its dock at 2 p.m. Thursday. The pilots decided to stop boarding ships to guide them in or out at 8:20 p.m., said Henry A. de La Garza, spokesman for the Texas State Pilots Association.
Ports farther from the hurricane’s projected landfall were taking action, too.
The Freeport-based Brazos Pilots reported that the last outbound ship at the port there was scheduled to set sail at 6 p.m. Thursday. Houston Pilots suspended boardings for inbound vessels at 12:30 p.m. Thursday. They had 45 ships scheduled to depart between 10 a.m. Thursday and noon on Friday, he said.
The U.S. Coast Guard set port condition yankee — in which ships are not allowed to enter port — for Houston, Galveston, Freeport, Texas City and Corpus Christi. The designation also requires trans- fer-of-cargo operations to stop when wind speeds reach 40 mph.
As of Thursday, there were no plans to close any Port Houston terminals although officials continued to monitor the weather.
Spokeswoman Lisa Ashley said Port Houston has a communications plan in place to keep employees and customers up to date on the latest information regarding terminal operations. She added that officials are advising everyone to “exercise their own due diligence and caution regarding their personal safety.”
Inland construction sites have also slowed in preparation of Harvey.
Workers at Slack & Co. Contracting were preparing job sites in the Houston, Beaumont and Galveston areas. They secured materials to prevent them from floating away, moved equipment to higher ground, and they returned dirt to trenches and holes to lessen the damage to work that has already been performed.
“Despite all our precautions, the storm will have a tremendous economic impact on our business, due to lost time on 23 jobs, damaged materials, and jobsite reconstruction,” Karen Kershner, director of organizational development, said in an email.
Scaffolding company Big City Access has been fielding calls since Wednesday with requests to either take down or secure their equipment all over town, including buildings downtown and in the Texas Medical Center area.
“The last thing we need is all our stuff flying through downtown,” said James Evanicky, Houston branch manager for the scaffolding company.
He said officials will wait until around 3 p.m. on Friday to determine if workers will be out in the field all night.
“We’re going to work as long as we can,” he said.
Employees for Allstate Commercial Flooring, however, may get Friday off, cofounder Gary Sharpe said. At most, they will be let off work around 2 p.m.
Power plants also began battening the hatches. NRG Energy runs a 2,700-megawatt nuclear power plant in Matagorda County about 10 miles from the Gulf of Mexico. Spokesman Buddy Eller said the plant has special storm crews working around the clock, on a rotating basis.
Several hours before sustained winds reach 73 mph or greater, operators will start to shut down the plant. But they will also monitor power outages carefully to see if the grid will need the plant to act as a backup to replace lost power supplies.
“You are monitoring what the transmission system is doing so you can respond accordingly,” NRG spokesman Dave Knox said.
In the deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico, Exxon Mobil is reducing production and scaling back at its Hoover-Diana field, spokeswoman Suann Guthrie said. Exxon also is evacuating its Galveston 209 platform and temporarily ceasing oil production from its Hadrian South subsea system.
Royal Dutch Shell said it halted production and secured its massive Perdido platform in the Gulf. And The Woodlands-based Anadarko Petroleum said it was removing nonessential personnel from four of its Gulf fields.
“Although, there have been no impacts to production at this time associated with the weather, we are prepared to shut in our facilities and evacuate remaining personnel if necessary to ensure safety and protect the environment,” the company said.