Shell says US Gulf West Delta 143 facilities damaged by Hurricane Ida

A flyover by Shell of its deepwater assets in the US Gulf of Mexico following Hurricane Ida has found damage to the company's West Delta 143 offshore facilities, the company said Sept. 2.

"When it is safe to do so, we will send personnel offshore to provide a closer inspection of these facilities to understand the full extent of the damage and the degree to which our production in the Gulf of Mexico will likely be impacted," Shell said in a statement.

The WD-143 facilities serve as the transfer station for all production from Shell's assets in the Mars corridor in the Mississippi Canyon area of the US Gulf to onshore crude terminals.

"At the early phase of assessment and recovery, approximately 80% of Shell-operated production in the Gulf of Mexico, remains offline," the company said, but did not immediately say how much or whether WD-143 was part of that total.

Shell had earlier said its Stones field is back online and producing into the floating production, storage and offloading vessel Turritella, while its Perdido hub in the ultradeep US Gulf was out of the immediate path of the storm.

"All of our other offshore assets remain shut in and remain fully evacuated at this time," Shell said. "In our initial flyover, we did not observe any visible structural damage to the rest of our offshore assets. When we are able to safely deploy personnel offshore to these assets, we will conduct additional inspections and work to restore production as soon as possible."