MIAMI, July 23 (Reuters) - Tropical Storm Bonnie took aim at the Gulf of Mexico on Friday, moving on a track expected to take it over the site of BP Plc's deepwater oil spill after a soggy trek across south Florida.
At 2 p.m. EDT (1800 GMT), the center of the fast-moving storm was located about 55 miles (88 km) east-southeast of Naples, Florida, and it was due to head out over the Gulf sometime early Friday evening, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said.
Oil and natural gas producers in the energy-rich Gulf were evacuating offshore workers, and the U.S. government said 28.3 percent of Gulf oil production and 10.4 percent of gas output had been shut in ahead of the storm as of early Friday afternoon.
The evacuation could push back BP’s mid-August target date for ending the worst oil spill in U.S. history but the blown-out Macondo well will remain capped during the halt in operations.
The Gulf of Mexico is home to about 30 percent of U.S. oil production, 11 percent of natural gas production and more than 43 percent of U.S. refinery capacity.
Weather models projected that Bonnie’s track will take it over the oil spill region and the storm’s winds are expected to begin affecting the oil slick by Saturday morning.
Bonnie, packing top sustained winds of about 40 miles (64 km) per hour, doused much of south Florida with heavy rains.
There were no reports of significant damage or storm surge, however, and the possibility of isolated tornadoes over the southern tip of Florida late on Friday posed the biggest local threat from the storm.
Some intensification of Bonnie was possible, as it moved moved out over the Gulf toward the Deepwater Horizon oil spill site. But the storm was not expected to become a hurricane and it was moving too fast to strengthen much before its expected landfall anywhere between the Louisiana coast and Florida’s northwest Panhandle early on Sunday morning.
Bonnie is the second named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season, which began on June 1 and runs through Nov. 30.
Forecasters say this year’s hurricane season is expected to be especially active.
