Gulf disturbance likely to grow, unlikely to affect oil output

The Gulf of Mexico has been met by a low pressure system which, according to forecasters, could develop into a subtropical storm soon. Upper Texas coast could receive rainfall or high winds.

According to the National Hurricane Center, the disturbance may become Subtropical Storm by Wednesday. A subtropical system is a little different from the tropical storm, in that it does not have the strongest winds being tightly bundled around its center.

The system also has the potential to turn into a tropical storm as it moves to the west or west-northwest at about 10 mph.

Since time and energy will be required by the disturbance to develop into a full tropical system, it should probably not reach hurricane status before making landfall somewhere along the Gulf Coast.

The Gulf of Mexico oil and natural gas producers are not expecting the stormy weather to produce any hindrance to offshore production, they said on Tuesday.

"Right now, we don't anticipate any impact on our operations," said Louisiana Offshore Oil Port spokeswoman Barb Hestermann.

According to the projection of computer models, on late Thursday or early Friday the storm might come ashore somewhere between the central Texas coast and Alabama. Most probably it will enter near the Texas and Louisiana border.

Various companies are constantly monitoring the progress of the storm in the Gulf.