New York
Royal Dutch Shell halted some oil production and began evacuating workers from a US Gulf of Mexico platform, the company said, as a new tropical storm flared. Beta, the 23rd-named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season, formed in the Bay of Campeche and was forecast to strengthen steadily and become a hurricane by Sunday off the Texas coast, the National Hurricane Center (NHC) said. Shell said it was removing non-essential employees from its Perdido platform in the western Gulf of Mexico and securing nearby drilling rigs.
Occidental Petroleum Corp, which operates in the same area, also began implementing storm procedures, it said. Chevron Corp. has not newly evacuated staff and there was no impact from storm Beta on production at its operated facilities, the company said.—Agencies
