NEWS RELEASE

Hurricane Dennis Damage Is Slight Says Federal Agency

The Minerals Management Service announced today that the damage caused by Hurricane Dennis to oil and gas operations in the Gulf of Mexico was extremely light.

MMS Gulf of Mexico Regional Director Chris Oynes noted that “our preliminary report is that the damage from Hurricane Dennis was extremely light.  This was much lighter than Hurricane Ivan was last year.  The eye of the hurricane was about 120 miles farther east than Ivan’s was in the deeper water sections of the Gulf and thus the impact to the platforms and rigs was minimal.  The path of the hurricane carried it mostly over open water with no oil and gas operations.”

The damage that was noted was small amounts of missing handrails and steel grating from the lower levels of the platforms.  There was no reported damage to the transportation pipelines and a very small number of damage reports to infield flowlines.

At the present time no link has been established between the hurricane and the damage to the Thunder Horse facility, however, an investigation is underway.

MMS, part of the U.S. Department of the Interior, oversees 1.76 billion acres of the Outer Continental Shelf, managing offshore energy and minerals while protecting the human, marine, and coastal environments through advanced science and technology research.  The OCS provides 30 percent of oil and 21 percent of natural gas produced domestically, and sand used for coastal restoration. MMS collects, accounts for, and disburses mineral revenues from Federal and American Indian lands, with Fiscal Year 2004 disbursements of approximately $8 billion and more than $143 billion since 1982.  The Land and Water Conservation Fund, which pays for cooperative conservation, grants to states, and Federal land acquisition, gets nearly $1 billion a year.