Oil Firms Start U.S. Gulf Evacuations Due to Weather

HOUSTON (Reuters) - BP Plc on Wednesday became the first major oil producer to say it was evacuating some workers from Gulf of Mexico oil and gas platforms because of a tropical disturbance that could become a named storm this week.

Later on Wednesday, Anadarko Petroleum Corp joined BP saying it has evacuated non-essential workers from three platforms in the Gulf.

Royal Dutch Shell also was preparing to evacuate some workers and expected to decide whether to move forward with that during the day, spokeswoman Kelly op de Weegh said.

Shell was monitoring the system over the northwestern Caribbean Sea and the eastern Gulf. The National Hurricane Center said the weather formation had a 30 percent chance of becoming a cyclone in the next two days.

Chevron Corp, Exxon Mobil Corp, ConocoPhillips and Apache Corp also said they were monitoring the system.

BP, the biggest oil producer in the Gulf with eight company-operated oil and gas platforms, said it was evacuating from five platforms more than 500 "nonessential" workers, or those not directly involved in production, such as cooks. Read More