Ida sloshes ashore, US Gulf oil operations recover

MOBILE, Alabama - Ida dwindled to a tropical depression on Tuesday after crawling ashore in Alabama from the Gulf of Mexico, and oil operations in the Gulf were quickly returning to normal after being widely disrupted by the storm.

Ida, which at its peak had been a late-season Category 2 hurricane, made its first U.S. landfall at Mobile, Alabama. As it brought rain inland, it appeared to cause only limited flooding and minimal power outages.

Gulf of Mexico oil and natural gas companies, many of which carried out evacuations of personnel and shutdowns as Ida passed on Monday, were restoring operations on Tuesday.

Giant energy facilities in the Gulf like the Louisiana Offshore Oil Port and the Independence Hub hoped to restore operations late on Tuesday or early on Wednesday, according to owners and operators.

The storm on Monday had shut down almost 30 percent of Gulf of Mexico oil production and nearly 28 percent of gas output.

Crude oil prices, which jumped $2 per barrel on Monday as Ida churned through the Gulf, dropped on Tuesday as the reports of quick restarts by oil companies arrived.

"Ida has lost tropical characteristics and its winds are expected to slowly diminish during the next day or so," the Miami-based U.S. National Hurricane Center said.

DIMINISHING INTENSITY

Ida's winds decreased to near 35 miles per hour (55 kilometers per hour) and the hurricane center said all storm warnings had been discontinued. The weakening weather system was turning east over northern Florida after dumping rain over parts of Alabama, Georgia and the Florida panhandle region.

The U.S. Coast Guard said it expected to reopen the Mississippi River from New Orleans to the Gulf of Mexico by Tuesday afternoon.

As Ida earlier trekked northward toward the Gulf of Mexico over parts of Central America, torrential rain, floods and mudslides caused 144 deaths in El Salvador in the last few days.

After heavier rainfall overnight, residents of Mobile reported only light rain and winds on Tuesday. Inhabitants of the southern Alabama city shrugged off the effects of Ida.

Ida, downgraded from a hurricane to a tropical storm on Monday, posed the first real threat of the 2009 Atlantic hurricane season to Gulf of Mexico oil and natural gas production and forced some companies to shut down offshore platforms and evacuate personnel.

A quarter of U.S. oil and 15 percent of U.S. natural gas are produced from fields in the Gulf, and the coast is home to 40 percent of the nation's refining capacity.

Energy markets have been hypersensitive to Gulf storms since the devastating 2004 and 2005 seasons, when Hurricane Katrina and other storms disrupted U.S. output and sent pump prices soaring.

(Click on the link below for a graphic on Ida's projected path http://graphics.thomsonreuters.com/119/US_HKIDA1109U2.gif)

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