HOUSTON (Reuters) - Royal Dutch Shell Plc <RDSa.L> and BHP <BHP.AX> on Tuesday began evacuating workers from six offshore energy platforms in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico ahead of an approaching storm.
Shell said it evacuated non-essential staff on the Appomattox, Mars, Olympus and Ursa platforms and reduced oil production by about 2,535 barrels per day (bpd) on its Mars and Olympus platforms. It expects minimal impacts to operations.
BHP was ramping down production and expected to complete staff departures from its Neptune and Shenzi production platforms by Wednesday afternoon, said spokeswoman Judy Dane.
The Gulf of Mexico is home to 17 percent of U.S. crude oil output and 5 percent of natural gas output daily, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
(Reporting by Collin Eaton in Houston, Editing by Rosalba O'Brien and Cynthia Osterman)