By Adrian Virgen
CAMPECHE, Mexico (Reuters) - Tropical Storm Alex was expected to become a hurricane later on Monday as it heads northwest towards the Mexico-Texas border but was likely to stay far from the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
Forecasters said Alex was moving slowly away from Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula, but Coast Guard officials have said they do not think the storm poses an imminent threat to oil-siphoning efforts at BP Plc's blown-out Macondo well.
Oil prices fell towards $78 per barrel on Monday as concerns about over the impact in supply from Alex eased.
Protectively, Shell Oil Co shut subsea production at the Auger and Brutus platforms in the Gulf during the weekend and evacuated nonessential workers from production platforms and drilling rigs in U.S.-regulated areas.
Some streets in the coastal city of Campeche were flooded by Alex's heavy rains but officials said there was no serious damage reported from the storm.
"There has not been serious affects and emergency services personnel are surveying the region," Jorge Argaez, a civil protection official for the state of Campeche, told reporters over the weekend.
The Mexican government on Sunday closed the ports of Dos Bocas and Cayo Arcas, which handle 80 percent of all its export shipping in the Gulf of Mexico, citing bad weather and strong surf in the area. They were still closed early on Monday.
State-run oil giant Pemex said its platforms in the Campeche Sound were working normally and there was no evacuation plan yet due to Alex.
"We are on alert but platforms remain working," a Pemex spokesman told Reuters on Sunday in a text message. Pemex's "emergency plan for hurricanes is constantly monitoring" systems in the area, he said.
The storm is expected to make landfall again between Brownsville, Texas, and Tuxpan de Rodriguez Cano in Mexico, mostly sparing BP oil collection efforts south of Louisiana.
Alex, the first named storm of the 2010 Atlantic hurricane season, had sustained winds of about 50 mph (85 kph) with higher gusts and was located about 75 miles (115 km) west of Campeche, Mexico. The system was moving northwest at 6 mph (9 kph).
"Additional strengthening is forecast during the next 48 hours...and Alex could become a hurricane later today or on Tuesday," the U.S. National Hurricane Centre said on its latest update.
EL SALVADOR DEATHS
Two men drowned in El Salvador after they were swept away by a river swollen with rain dumped by Alex, civil protection head Jorge Melendez told reporters on Sunday.
Alex was expected to bring 4 to 8 inches (10 to 20 cm) of rain to the Yucatan Peninsula, southern Mexico and parts of Guatemala through Tuesday. Isolated amounts of up to 15 inches (38 cm) were possible over mountainous areas. Forecasters warned the rain could cause flash floods and mudslides.
The Atlantic hurricane season runs from June 1 to November 30 and meteorologists predict this year will be a very active one. Hurricanes feed on warm water and the sea surface temperatures in the tropical Atlantic are higher than usual this year.
(Additional reporting by Jose Cortazar in Cancun, Nelson Renteria in El Salvador, and Mica Rosenberg in Mexico City, editing by Vicki Allen)
