Ida sloshes ashore, US Gulf oil operations recover

MOBILE, Ala., (Reuters) – Ida dwindled to a tropical  depression on Tuesday after crawling ashore in Alabama from the  Gulf of Mexico, and oil operations in the Gulf were quickly  returning to normal after being widely disrupted by the storm.  

Ida, which at its peak had been a late-season Category 2  hurricane, made its first U.S. landfall at Mobile, Alabama. As  it brought rain inland, it appeared to cause only limited  flooding and minimal power outages.  

Gulf of Mexico oil and natural gas companies, many of which  carried out evacuations of personnel and shutdowns as Ida  passed on Monday, were restoring operations on Tuesday.  Giant energy facilities in the Gulf like the Louisiana  Offshore Oil Port and the Independence Hub hoped to restore  operations late on Tuesday or early on Wednesday, according to  owners and operators.  
The storm on Monday had shut down almost 30 percent of Gulf  of Mexico oil production and nearly 28 percent of gas output. 

Crude oil prices, which jumped $2 per barrel on Monday as  Ida churned through the Gulf, dropped on Tuesday as the reports  of quick restarts by oil companies arrived.
  
“Ida has lost tropical characteristics and its winds are  expected to slowly diminish during the next day or so,” the  Miami-based U.S. National Hurricane Center said. 
 
Ida’s winds decreased to near 35 miles per hour (55  kilometers per hour) and the hurricane center said all storm  warnings had been discontinued. The weakening weather system  was turning east over northern Florida after dumping rain over  parts of Alabama, Georgia and the Florida panhandle region.  

The U.S. Coast Guard said it expected to reopen the  Mississippi River from New Orleans to the Gulf of Mexico by  Tuesday afternoon. 
 
As Ida earlier trekked northward toward the Gulf of Mexico  over parts of Central America, torrential rain, floods and  mudslides caused 152 deaths in El Salvador in the last few  days, emergency workers in the country said.  

After heavier rainfall overnight, residents of Mobile  reported only light rain and winds on Tuesday. Inhabitants of  the southern Alabama city shrugged off the effects of Ida. 
 
Ida, downgraded from a hurricane to a tropical storm on  Monday, posed the first real threat of the 2009 Atlantic  hurricane season to Gulf of Mexico oil and natural gas  production and forced some companies to shut down offshore  platforms and evacuate personnel.  

A quarter of U.S. oil and 15 percent of U.S. natural gas  are produced from fields in the Gulf, and the coast is home to  40 percent of the nation’s refining capacity.  

Energy markets have been hypersensitive to Gulf storms  since the devastating 2004 and 2005 seasons, when Hurricane  Katrina and other storms disrupted U.S. output and sent pump  prices soaring.