St. Bernard Parish in Louisiana is hit by Tropical Storm Bertha

The U.S. National Hurricane Center reported on Wednesday that Tropical storm Bertha had made landfall in St. Bernard Parish in Louisiana. Miami-based forecaster said that the storm was located approximately 45 miles (70 kilometers) southwest of Biloxi in Mississippi, and 40 miles east of New Orleans. Maximum sustained winds have decreased to 45 mph. The NHC stated in an afternoon Wednesday advisory that the center of Bertha would move along or near the Louisiana and upper Texas coastlines on Thursday, then track further inland to Texas on Friday. It said that further weakening was expected over the next couple of days. Shell, BP and Occidental Petroleum are among the'major deepwater producers of oil and gas in this region. A refining corridor stretching from Corpus Christi (Texas) to Pascagoula (Mississippi) accounts for half of America's 18.4 million barrels per day capacity. According to the model forecast by consulting firm Earth Science Associates, 1.5 million barrels could be lost in the U.S. Gulf during the duration of this'storm. This is a significant increase over the 10,000 barrels that were impacted last month by Tropical Storm Arthur. According to Earth Science, BP, 'Chevron', Murphy 'Oil, Shell, and Talos Energy are the companies most at risk from the storm. Chevron announced earlier this week that it had evacuated personnel and shut down production at its Petronius plant as a precaution. BP has removed non-essential staff from its Thunder Horse platform and Na Kika platform, while Murphy 'Oil, Shell, and Talos have not responded to comments. U.S. Gulf of Mexico federal offshore waters produced about 2 million barrels of crude oil per day in March. This is 14% of the total U.S. production.

(source: Reuters)