Louisiana's Lake Borgne structures may have been hit by Katrina

Houston (Platts)--29Aug2005

Louisiana's Lake Borgne, currently a "hot" oil and natural gas drilling
area, could sustain substantial infrastructure damage after Hurricane Katrina
finishes passing through it, the head of the state's oil and gas association
said Monday. 
     Borgne, located just east of New Orleans and directly south of the
Louisiana/Mississippi border, "is one of the most productive drilling areas in
state waters," Don Briggs, president of the Louisiana Independent Oil & Gas
Association, told Platts in a telephone interview. "And that [Katrina] went
right up the middle of it." 
     Briggs guessed that sizeable pipeline and platform damage could have
resulted, if the example of last year's Hurricane Ivan is any guide. Ivan,
which came ashore on the Florida panhandle, and did not directly affect the
New Orleans area, but tore up and scattered some eastern Gulf and far central
Gulf subsea pipelines. 
     Ivan, like Katrina was a major hurricane, although Katrina is moving at a
faster velocity and "is larger and much more widespread," said Briggs. "I
think we'll have pipeline damage, not rig damage, but production structure
damage to platforms."
     Briggs did not know how much Louisiana production was shut-in or how many
rigs were evacuated because of Katrina. LIOGA does not require companies to
report such information. However, a large percentage of the state's rigs work
in either western or northwestern Louisiana, which are areas not directly in
Katrina's path, Briggs noted.

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