Transocean evacuating rigs due to Dean

HOUSTON (Reuters) - Transocean Inc., the world's largest offshore oil and gas driller, on Friday stepped up plans to evacuate workers from deepwater drilling rigs in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico ahead of Hurricane Dean.

"We plan more evacuations from a few rigs today and tomorrow," the company said in an e-mail.

Transocean said that by Saturday it expected to have evacuated all 92 personnel from the Transocean Amirante, a moored semisubmersible rig that is the most westerly rig in its fleet, Guy Cantwell, a spokesman for the company said.

The Transocean Amirante is located 151 miles southwest of Kaplan, Louisiana.

In addition, Houston-based Transocean has evacuated about 75 nonessential workers in the past two days from two drill ships and two semisubmersible rigs.

The company has about 1,270 people working on 10 rigs in the Gulf of Mexico, it said.