Rita damages Chevron platform, several rigs missing

“Rita may set an all time record for the greatest number of offshore rigs damaged and destroyed by a single storm, and almost certainly will set a record for the past 10 years.”

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NEW YORK (Reuters) - Hurricane Rita severely damaged a major offshore oil production platform and left several drilling rigs missing or aground off the Louisiana coast, energy companies said on Monday.

As companies began to report the damage sustained from the hurricane, offshore infrastructure appeared to be hit much harder than onshore facilities, threatening to add to energy supply woes in the United States, analysts said.

The Typhoon platform -- one of three major Chevron Corp. deep-water production platforms in the region -- was severed from its mooring and suffered severe damage during the hurricane, the No. 2 U.S. oil major said.

"The good news is Houston was spared, the bad news is that a tight situation for oil and gas supply just got tighter," Credit Suisse First Boston analysts said in a research note. "In the short run, lost demand will likely offset lost production, but onshore demand can recover more quickly than seriously damaged offshore infrastructure can be repaired."

Offshore drillers GlobalSantaFe Corp. and Rowan Cos. Inc. reported three missing rigs between them while Diamond Offshore Drilling Inc. said two of its rigs broke free from their moorings and ran aground about 100 miles north of their original locations.

In addition, Rowan said two jackup drilling rigs were no longer at their original locations while another ran aground offshore Louisiana.

"Rita may set an all time record for the greatest number of offshore rigs damaged and destroyed by a single storm, and almost certainly will set a record for the past 10 years," CSFB said.

The damage to offshore oil and gas facilities along the Gulf coast comes on top of damage inflicted by Hurricane Katrina just a few weeks ago. That hurricane damaged Shell's Mars platform and destroyed 46 small energy platforms.

Oil production in the Gulf of Mexico was fully shut while about 78 percent of natural gas output was shut as of Monday.

Still, some felt that Rita inflicted much less damage than feared, particularly since the hurricane spared the crucial Houston refining hub.

"Hurricane Rita will wreak some havoc on energy supply, but could have been far worse," Wachovia analysts said in a research note. "The critical Houston/Texas City energy complex emerged unscathed, and production should ramp back up this week."

A decision on when production could be restarted at Chevron's other offshore facilities will be made when it completes post-storm assessments, the company said.

Meanwhile, its other facilities began returning to normal. Chevron's refined products terminal at Galena Park, Texas, reopened on Saturday after being closed prior to the storm.

It is operating around-the-clock to deliver more than 1.2 million gallons of motor vehicle fuels per day to more than 450 service stations within a 100-mile radius of Houston.

Chevron also shot down initial reports of a rupture and leakage at its Henry Hub natural gas complex near Sabine Pass in western Louisiana. The company said emergency response personnel investigated reports of a gas leak and found two separate releases of natural gas, but neither originated from Chevron's facilities.

Chevron, the No. 2 U.S. oil major, and Anglo-Australian miner BHP Billiton, both own a 50 percent stake in Typhoon, which had been spared by Hurricane Katrina late last month.

Chevron operates the platform, which began production in 2001 and produces 40,000 barrels of oil and 60 million cubic feet of natural gas per day.

Shares of Chevron closed up about 1.5 percent, at $64.24 on the New York Stock Exchange amid a rally in the oil and gas sector.

The internationally renowned correspondent for The Independent -- the great British journalist Robert Fisk has been banned from entering the United States. Fisk has been covering war zones for decades, but is above all known for his incisive reporting from the Middle East for more than 20 years. His critical coverage of the Anglo-American invasion of Iraq, and the continuing occupation that has followed it, has repeatedly exposed U.S. and British government disinformation campaigns. He also has exposed how the bulk of the press reports from Iraq have been "hotel journalism" -- a phrase Fisk coined --

The Daily New Mexican reports that " U.S. immigration officials refused Tuesday to allow Robert Fisk, longtime Middle East correspondent for the London newspaper, The Independent, to board a plane from Toronto to Denver. Fisk was on his way to Santa Fe for a sold-out appearance in the Lannan Foundation’s readings-and-conversations series Wednesday night. According to Christie Mazuera Davis, a Lannan program officer, Fisk was told that his papers were not in order. Davis made last-minute arrangements Wednesday for Amy Goodman, host of Pacifica Radio’s daily news show, Democracy Now!, to interview Fisk via satellite from a television station in Toronto..." A recording of this satellite interview will soon be available on the Lannan Foundation's website. If Fisk has been barred from entry, it's very hard not to believe it has something to do with dispatches of his like this one from September 15.

I have long admired Fisk's unbeatably first-rate journalism, his intrepid insistence on sticking his nose where the authorities -- of whatever country he's in -- don't want him to go. He constantly shows up the sluggish cowardice and indolent hand-out journalism practiced by so many U.S. foreign correspondents from the safety of their hotel bars. That the U.S. won't allow this great journalist into this country to tell what he has seen and what he knows is a scandal.

If you're not familiar with Fisk's reporting, there is an entire website devoted to it -- read Fisk's latest, and find an archive of his articles (plus audio-visual materials) by clicking here. You can also order Fisk's books, like Pity the Nation: The Abduction of Lebanon, and The Great War for Civilization: The Conquest of the Middle East.