Mexico closes oil ports due to bad weather

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexico closed all of its main oil exporting ports on Wednesday due to bad weather, the transport ministry said on its Web site.

The Gulf of Mexico ports of Dos Bocas, Cayo Arcas and Pajaritos in Coatzacoalcos, which together ship around 80 percent of Mexico's oil exports, were shut in the morning, as was the smaller Pacific coast oil port of Salina Cruz.

A late-afternoon update by the ministry confirmed the closures were still in place. The next update was due on Thursday morning.

In all, a dozen commercial ports were closed, along with dockside loading points, as a cold front brought strong winds, high seas and poor visibility to the Mexican Gulf.

A Pemex spokeswoman said the closures should mean only minor delays to exports and that shipping could resume as early as Thursday morning if the weather improved.

"It will not affect production or exports. If (the ports) open tomorrow we will send what would have been shipped today," a Pemex spokeswoman said.

Mexico is the world's No. 9 exporter of crude oil, shipping an average of 1.7 million barrels per day in 2007, and a top three supplier to the United States, which buys roughly 80 percent of Mexican exported oil.

Pemex's exports have been repeatedly disrupted in recent months by bad weather that has halted shipments for days at a time and in some cases triggered the evacuation of oil rig workers.

(Reporting by Catherine Bremer; Editing by David Gregorio)