The impact of extreme weather on offshore production in the Gulf of Mexico

Tropical storms and hurricanes regularly challenge and endanger the coastal community and energy infrastructure throughout the Gulf of Mexico. When severe weather conditions develop, operators shutdown production and evacuate personnel ahead of the storm, and after the storm makes landfall, crews return to work, damage assessments are performed, and facilities are repaired, if required, prior to the resumption of production. Many factors impact operations and contribute to production variability, but extreme weather is the only factor that has the potential to impact a significant number of structures simultaneously. The purpose of this paper is to examine the role extreme weather plays in production volatility and to quantify its impact on production trends. Using records of historic production and weather events from 1950–2003, empirical models are developed to estimate shut-in production. A description of the model construction, model statistics, and the limitations of analysis are presented. First-order regression models of shut-in production based on the physical characteristics of weather events are developed.