Anadarko: Nonessential Workers Removed From 3 Gulf Platforms

(Dow Jones) Anadarko Petroleum Corp. (APC) said Wednesday that it has removed nonessential workers from the company’s Gunnison, Nansen and Boomvang oil platforms in the Gulf of Mexico as a tropical wave and a tropical storm moved toward the area.

Anadarko said it was monitoring the path of the weather systems and was “prepared to evacuate all personnel and shut in production if necessary.”

BP PLC (BP) said it was evacuating more than 500 nonessential workers from platforms in the Southern Green Canyon area of the Gulf, while Royal Dutch Shell PLC (RDSA, RDSA.LN) said it was preparing to evacuate personnel but had not yet done so.

The National Hurricane Center said a tropical wave in the northwestern Caribbean Sea was moving west-northwest at 10 to 15 miles an hour and could turn into a larger storm headed for the central or western Gulf of Mexico in a few days.

A storm in the Gulf could affect offshore oil and gas production. The possibility of a Gulf storm helped drive natural gas futures to two-week highs.

Meanwhile, Tropical Storm Katia, located further south, near the Leeward Islands, was also moving west-northwest, at 20 miles an hour (32 km an hour), with maximum sustained winds of 70 miles an hour (110 km an hour), the NHC said. The agency has predicted that Katia is likely to veer east of the Gulf, toward the east coast of Florida.

-By Cassandra Sweet, Dow Jones Newswires