BP: Restarted Output at Mad Dog, Atlantis Fields in U.S. Gulf

BP Plc said Friday that it restarted oil and gas production at its Mad Dog and Atlantis fields in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico.

"We can confirm that we resumed production at Mad Dog and Atlantis and are ramping up," a BP spokesman told Dow Jones Newswires. The spokesman declined to comment on production levels.

Atlantis, which has the capacity to produce 200,000 barrels of oil and 180 million cubic feet of gas a day, was off-line during the entire second quarter because BP was replacing facilities located on the seabed, according to executive comments during its earnings call in July.

Mad Dog, which has a production capacity of 80,000 barrels of oil and 40 million cubic feet of natural gas a day, was down for 15 months. The platform suffered damage during hurricane Ike in 2008. BP had announced in its earnings call that both platforms would be back online during the third quarter.

BP said during its earnings call that it lost about 86,000 barrels a day of oil equivalent in net oil and gas production in the U.S. Gulf due to maintenance and Tropical Storm Debby.

BP is ramping up operations in the U.S. Gulf as it recovers from the fallout of the Deepwater Horizon blowout, which in 2010 killed 11, unleashed the worst offshore oil spill in U.S. history, and prompted a major review of offshore drilling regulations. The company's executive vice president for developments, Bernard Looney, said in a speech in late April that the company is investing $4 billion in the U.S. Gulf in 2012, and that it plans to invest at least that amount annually over the next decade.