Shell restarts 26,000 boed in Gulf after Ike

NEW YORK, Sept 17 (Reuters) - Shell Oil (RDSa.L) said it restarted some 26,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day from the Gulf of Mexico in the wake of hurricanes Gustav and Ike.

"While Hurricane Ike did not damage our East area assets, we still have remaining repair work at some locations (Mars, Ursa, West Delta 143 and Cognac) from Hurricane Gustav that could not be completed before we evacuated for Ike," the company said in a press release issued late Tuesday.

"As mentioned earlier, we are also using this downtime to complete some regular maintenance work at several of these facilities that was scheduled, prior to Gustav and Ike, for later this month," the company said.

"We currently expect the bulk of the remaining production in the East area to start up late this weekend and into mid next week," it added.

Shell is the largest oil producer in the Gulf of Mexico with over 130,000 bpd of capacity, according to MMS figures. (Reporting by Richard Valdmanis; Editing by John Picinich)