CHETUMAL, Mexico, (Reuters) – Tropical storm Ernesto weakened today as it dumped heavy rains over Mexico’s southern Yucatan peninsula and headed toward the Gulf of Mexico, where Mexico’s main oil operations are located.
A hurricane warning for Mexico’s western Gulf coast was called off earlier today and replaced with lower-grade hurricane watch as the storm lost strength over land.
The storm spared major tourist areas on the Yucatan coast from a direct hit, landing in sparsely populated low-lying jungle late yesterday. It made land as a Category 1 hurricane, the lowest on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale, and was downgraded to a tropical storm early today.
The storm was set to emerge later today over the southern Bay of Campeche, where state oil company Pemex has port facilities and offshore platforms, the U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami said in its 2 p.m. EDT (1800 GMT) advisory.
At that time, the storm was located 60 miles (95 km) east of Ciudad del Carmen in the state of Campeche. Hurricane conditions were possible again by Thursday as the storm approaches the Gulf coast, the center said.
Mexico closed its three major oil export ports in the Gulf of Mexico – Cayo Arcas, Dos Bocas and Coatzacoalcos – as Ernesto approached, port authorities said.
Almost all of Mexico’s crude oil exports are shipped to refineries on the Gulf Coast of the United States from the three ports.
“The prognosis is to be operational again on Thursday,” said Dos Bocas official Guadalupe Perez. “But we don’t know when it will open. It depends on the size of the waves.”
The storm looked set to sweep the Minatitlan refinery, which processes 185,000 barrels per day.
A Pemex representative said all the company’s facilities in the area were operating normally, including the oil fields of Cantarell and Ku Maloob Zaap, which account for just over half of Mexico’s oil production of about 2.5 million bpd.
Ernesto’s top sustained wind speed fell to 45 miles per hour (75 km per hour) and it was moving west at 13 mph (20 kph) over the southern portion of the Yucatan peninsula.
Winds blew down trees and knocked out power in some small towns in Campeche state, a civil protection official said.
A hurricane watch was in effect along the coast of Veracruz state, but civil protection authorities there said they doubted Ernesto would arrive with much strength after losing steam over the Yucatan.
Still, authorities said they were preparing emergency shelters, if needed, in the flood-prone and densely populated state.
