By Patrick Rucker and Jason Lange
MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Hurricane Karl strengthened in the southern Gulf of Mexico late on Thursday and was expected to intensify as it crossed Mexico's offshore gas and oil terrain before making landfall late on Friday.
Karl strengthened to a Category 2 storm late on Thursday and "could reach the coast as an intense category three hurricane," the National Hurricane Center said in a statement.
State-run oil giant Pemex evacuated platforms in the path of the storm and halted production at 14 minor wells, the company said in a statement that did not detail how those measures would disrupt production.
"Since yesterday, as a precaution, we began evacuating platforms in the area and that operation is complete," Pemex said.
The company is monitoring Karl's progress across the Bay of Campeche in the Gulf, where the bulk of Mexico's 2.55 million barrels per day of oil is produced.
Two of Mexico's main oil exporting ports closed as Karl passed through the region.
The storm was upgraded from a Category 1 hurricane, the weakest on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale, and achieved winds of 100 miles per hour, as it picked up strength as it left Mexico's main cluster of oil platforms behind and barreled toward the state of Veracruz, where it could touch land on Friday night.
But Karl seemed unlikely to inflict lasting damage and oil prices fell more than 2 percent as traders set aside the storm and focused on the expected resumption of a major Canadian pipeline.
The storm is the sixth hurricane of the 2010 Atlantic season. Of those, four have been "major" hurricanes that reach Category 3 or higher. At 11 p.m. EDT (0300 GMT), Karl was about 115 miles east of Veracruz.
NO DAMAGE TO OIL FACILITIES
Pemex suspended small craft shipping to platforms in the bay but there were no reports of damage to any oil installations there, a company employee said.
Storms in the Bay of Campeche have the potential to cause serious disruption to Mexican oil output but rarely pass far enough south to cause problems. Mexico was the No. 3 supplier of crude to the United States during the first half of this year, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
Any disruption in production would likely last days, although rare direct hits on major platforms in the past have forced lengthy shutdowns.
Earlier in the week, Karl dumped rain and brought strong winds to the Yucatan Peninsula and hundreds of people, mostly Mayan villagers, were evacuated, authorities said.
The storm also knocked out power to tens of thousands of people throughout the mainly rural area. Majahual, home to a large cruise ship port, bore the brunt of the storm as it made landfall but no serious damage was reported.
Cancun, a top beach destination for U.S. and European tourists, was untouched by the storm.
Forecasters shifted the anticipated landfall of Karl south of the gasoline-importing city of Tuxpan toward Veracruz, a major Mexican port but one which does not handle any crude oil exports.
IGOR AND JULIA
Two other hurricanes, Igor and Julia, churned across the Atlantic Ocean but posed no immediate threat to the U.S. mainland or energy interests. Both are projected to die out far from land.
Igor was 840 miles south-southeast of Bermuda with maximum sustained winds of 125 mph on Thursday afternoon, having weakened to a still-dangerous Category 3 storm.
Igor was on a track that would bring it close to the British overseas territory late on Sunday and early on Monday.
Bermudan Home Affairs Minister David Burch urged islanders to get ready. "You should be getting prepared now -- if you wait until Saturday evening, it will be too late," he said.
Local forecasters in Bermuda said the Atlantic island should prepare for a "virtual direct hit" from Igor, which was expected to pass less than 50 miles east of the island as a Category 2 hurricane on Sunday.
Bermuda's government said the territory had not been threatened by such a severe hurricane since Hurricane Fabian in 2003, which killed four people and caused millions of dollars worth of damage.
Julia had weakened to a Category 1 storm, with 80-mph (130-kph) winds. It was located about 1,375 miles southwest of the Azores and was moving northwest.
The June-November hurricane season has been more active than average this year, with 11 named storms so far, but damage has been relatively limited as several storms fizzled out in the Atlantic.
(Additional reporting by Robert Campbell in Mexico City and Samantha Strangeways in Hamilton; Editing by Missy Ryan and Peter Cooney)
