HOUSTON (Reuters) - Shell Oil has shut subsea production at its Auger and Brutus platforms in the Gulf of Mexico because of the threat of Alex, a website posting said on Sunday.
A Shell spokesman declined to say how much production was affected by the decision or whether Auger and Brutus were completely or partially shut down as the system crossed the Yucatan Peninsula as a tropical depression Sunday.
Both Auger and Brutus receive production from remote subsea wells that were shut because of personnel evacuation and projections of Alex's possible storm track, Shell's posting said.
Some weather models Sunday moved the track a bit farther north than earlier projections, although most still had the storm hitting land in eastern Mexico or far south Texas.
The website posting said Shell would continue evacuations of personnel from deep water operations in the south-western Gulf that began Saturday, bringing another 35 workers to shore for a total of 430 pulled in to avoid Alex.
Shell said it was leaving 1,100 workers in place at installations in the Gulf.
"We will continue to monitor this system closely and respond to further developments," the Shell web posting said.
Other Gulf operators Chevron, Exxon Mobil and Anadarko said they were monitoring the storm but had not shut production or evacuated personnel as of Sunday afternoon.
Shell's website lists Auger's capacity at 101,000 barrels of oil and 415 million cubic feet of gas per day and Brutus' at 110,000 bpd of oil and 150 Mmcfd of gas, but it was unclear whether either was currently producing at those levels.
Shell's Perdido deepwater development is located farther west and south than Auger and Brutus and appears more in the likely path of Alex.
Perdido is about 200 miles (320 km) east of Brownsville, Texas. Auger is situated 255 miles (410 km) southeast of Houston and Brutus about 165 miles (266 km) southwest of New Orleans.
(Reporting by Bruce Nichols, editing by Martin Golan)
