Last week Hurricane Laura, the most powerful and damaging Category 4 Atlantic hurricane since the 1856 Last Island hurricane, forced the Garden Banks and Nautilus natural gas pipelines, serving four major U.S. Gulf of Mexico production platforms, to shut down, pipeline operator Enbridge said.

The company declared force majeure on the Garden Banks and Nautilus after inspecting facilities over the weekend. Nautilus resumed operations on Sunday. The Garden Banks pipeline, a 1 billion cubic feet per day natural gas line, was shut due to a communications problem. 

Garden Banks Pipeline connects the Auger, Baldpate, Enchilada, and Magnolia offshore production platforms to onshore lines. As of this publication the pipeline had not been brought back on stream.

Energy companies continued to inspect and restart offshore operations while damage assessments onshore were hampered by power outages. In Lake Charles, Louisiana, near where the storm made landfall, Citgo Petroleum and Phillips 66 said reviews to onshore oil refineries could take days.