HOUSTON: More than a quarter of U.S. offshore Gulf of Mexico oil output was shut and export ports were closed on Tuesday as Hurricane Sally stalled just off the U.S. Gulf Coast, pelting the region with heavy rains.

Sally weakened on Tuesday to a Category One hurricane with sustained winds of 85 miles per hour (140 kph), moving at a snail’s pace that threatened “historic” flooding from Mississippi to Florida, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said in a late day update https://tinyurl.com/y66gwc4s.

The storm plowed through prime U.S. offshore production areas and was meandering on a path toward Alabama and the Florida Panhandle, sparing New Orleans and some larger Gulf Coast refineries from its winds and rain.

Royal Dutch Shell shut its Appomattox oil platform about 80 miles off the coast of Louisiana, joining BP , Chevron Corp and Equinor in closing facilities less than one month after Hurricane Laura knocked about 1.5 million barrels per day of oil offline temporarily.

Nearly 500,000 bpd of offshore crude oil production and 28%, or 759 million cubic feet per day (mmcfd), of natural gas output were shut in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico on Tuesday, according to the U.S. Interior Department.

U.S. crude oil futures rose nearly 3% and gasoline futures climbed 2.3% on Tuesday on the hurricane-related oil production and refinery shut-ins despite demand losses from the COVID-19 pandemic.

The nation’s sole offshore terminal, the Louisiana Offshore Oil Port (LOOP), stopped loading tankers on Sunday, while ports from Biloxi, Mississippi, to Pensacola, Florida, were closed. Ports along the Mississippi River began to reopen late Tuesday with restrictions. The closings will cut roughly 307,000 bpd of crude and 411,000 bpd of refined products, according to Kpler data.

As of 10 p.m. CDT (0300 GMT) on Tuesday, Sally was about 65 miles (105 km) south of Mobile, Alabama, and crawling toward the northwest at 2 mph (3 kph). The crawling advance threatened to inundate the region.

Refiners in the region have wound down operations. Phillips 66 shut its Alliance oil refinery, which processes 255,600 bpd at a site along the Mississippi River on the coast of Louisiana.

Shell cut production to minimum rates on Monday at its 227,400-bpd Norco, Louisiana, refinery, but planned to keep a Mobile, Alabama, chemical and refinery plant operating with a skeleton crew.

Murphy Oil Corp said it was beginning to restore production at its eastern-most Gulf of Mexico oil platforms, and oil-giant Equinor said it expected to return workers to its Titan platform on Thursday.

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Form has Dustin Johnson as the hot favourite to be holding the U.S. Open trophy on Sunday but history is a major red flag for the big-hitting world number one.

Having won three tournaments, the FedExCup and the $15 million payday that goes with that title, it is hard to think 2020 could get any better for Johnson.

A major victory, however, would put a cherry on top of a campaign that has already seen the 36-year-old American land PGA Tour Player of the Year honours.

Johnson rolls into Winged Foot Golf Club as the man to beat riding a spectacular run of form that saw him post two wins and two runner-up finishes in his last four starts.

Mr Consistency, Johnson has won at least one event every year since joining the PGA Tour in 2008 but in those 13 seasons has claimed a single major victory.

Johnson has arrived at many majors as the man to beat but only once in 43 starts — the 2016 U.S. Open at Oakmont Country Club — walked away with the trophy.

Four-times he has held or shared the 54-hole lead going into the final round of a major, including last month’s PGA Championship, and was never able to close the deal.

“I’m playing well,” said Johnson, who will tee off in Thursday’s opening round alongside two other big-hitters Bryson DeChambeau and Tony Finau. “I’ve got a lot of confidence in the game but I’m not putting any extra expectations.

“I expect to play well every week.

“But it’s one of those golf courses where it’s very difficult and you need to be spot-on if you want to play well.”

FEROCIOUS LAYOUT

Scheduled for June before COVID-19 forced a reshuffling of the golf calendar, the U.S. Open returns to the ferocious Mamaroneck, N.Y. layout for the first time since 2006 when Australian Geoff Ogilvy hoisted the trophy.

The U.S. Open is branded as golf’s toughest test and Winged Foot fits the bill, requiring accuracy off the tee and a surgeon’s delicate touch on treacherous greens.

It is the venue where Tiger Woods missed his first cut at a major and Phil Mickelson endured perhaps the most gut-wrenching, of his record six runner-up U.S. Open finishes.

Tied for the lead going into the final round and needing only a par to take the title, Mickelson double-bogeyed the 18th to gift victory to Ogilvy.

Woods and Mickelson are back at Winged Foot but the one-time favourites will be long shots to add to their collections of major titles.

Chasing a 16th career major, Woods’s play has been erratic since the COVID-19 restart and he has managed just one top 40 result, a tie for 37th at the PGA Championship.

The 44-year-old’s form has been even more spotty coming into the U.S. Open with a tie for 58th at the Northern Trust and 51st at the BMW Championship.

For Mickelson, teeing it up at his 29th U.S. Open, it represents one more shot at completing golf’s career grand slam by adding the one major title that has cruelly eluded him.

Having just become a first time father, Rory McIlroy’s mind has been elsewhere and the Northern Irishman’s play has reflected that with only one top 10 result in his last six starts.

But following the birth of his daughter Poppy his focus was back as he finished in a tie for eighth at the Tour Championship, providing the former world number one with a jolt of confidence heading to Winged Foot.

Big-hitting Spaniard Jon Rahm, who briefly held the number one ranking this year, has a pair of wins since the restart plus the muscle to get around Winged Foot and could be ready to claim his first major success.

Also not to be overlooked is Justin Thomas, a three-time winner this season coming off a runner-up finish at the Tour Championship.

Fielding compelling questions about voters’ real-world problems, President Donald Trump denied during a televised town hall that he had played down the threat of the coronavirus earlier this year, although there is an audio recording of him stating he did just that.

Trump, in what could well be a preview of his performance in the presidential debates less than two weeks away, cast doubt on the widely accepted scientific conclusions of his own administration strongly urging the use of face coverings and seemed to bat away the suggestion that the nation has racial inequities.

“Well, I hope there’s not a race problem,” Trump said Tuesday when asked about his campaign rhetoric seeming to ignore the historical injustices carried out against Black Americans.

Face-to-face with everyday voters for the first time in months, Trump was defensive but resisted agitation as he was pressed on his administration's response to the COVID-19 pandemic and why he doesn't more aggressively promote the use of masks to reduce the spread of the disease.

“There are people that don’t think masks are good,” Trump said, though his own Centers for Disease Control and Prevention strongly urges their use.

The event, hosted by ABC News' George Stephanopoulos, was a warmup of sorts before Trump faces Democratic nominee Joe Biden in the first presidential debate on Sept. 29. Taped at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, it featured Trump taking questions from an audience of just 21 voters to comply with state and local coronavirus regulations.

Trump sought to counter his admission to journalist Bob Woodward that he was deliberately “playing it down” when discussing the threat of COVID-19 to Americans earlier this year. Despite audio of his comments being released, Trump said: “Yeah, well, I didn’t downplay it. I actually, in many ways, I up-played it, in terms of action."

“My action was very strong,” Trump added. “I’m not looking to be dishonest. I don’t want people to panic.”

Trump also insisted he was not wrong when he praised China's response to the virus in January and February, saying he trusted Xi Jinping, the Chinese leader. “He told me that it was under control, that everything was and it turned out to be not true,” Trump said,

Trump also suggested the virus would disappear without a vaccine, claiming the nation would develop a herd immunity with time, but he didn't mention the lives that would be lost along the way.

“It’s going to be herd-developed, and that’s going to happen. That will all happen,” Trump said. "But with a vaccine, I think it will go away very quickly."

The questions from uncommitted voters were pointed and poignant: a diabetic man who said he felt he’d been thrown “under the bus” by mishandling of the coronavirus pandemic; a Black woman with a disease that left her uninsurable until the Obama health care law came along who is worried that she could lose coverage again; a Black pastor who questioned Trump’s campaign motto to “Make America Great Again.”

“When has America been great for African Americans in the ghetto of America?” the pastor asked.

Asked about what he was doing to address protests against racial injustice, Trump lamented a “lack of respect” and the absence of “retribution” for those who clash with or carry out attacks against police officers. Trump on Sunday called for the death penalty for the individual who shot and critically injured two Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department deputies over the weekend.

Trump has been unusually mum on his debate preparations ahead of the first debate, set to take place in Cleveland. On Tuesday, he told Fox News that he believes his day job is the best practice for his three scheduled showdowns with Biden.

“Well, I sort of prepare every day by just doing what I’m doing,” Trump said. He noted that he had been in California on Monday and had been to other states before that to make the point that he’s getting out and about more than Biden.

One person likely to study the replay: Biden. Returning from a long day of campaigning in Florida, Biden said at his plane that he was preparing for the debates mostly by going back through what Trump has said in the past. But he suggested he had yet to initiate mock debates, saying he was unaware who would play the role of Trump in his preparations.

Trump, in the Fox interview, lowered expectations for his Democratic opponent's performance, judging Biden “a disaster” and “grossly incompetent” in the primary debates. He assessed Biden as “OK” and “fine” in his final one-on-one debate with Bernie Sanders before clinching the nomination.

Trump's rhetoric on Biden marked a departure from the traditional efforts by candidates to talk up their rivals' preparation for televised debates, in hopes of setting an unattainably high bar for their performance.

The second of the three scheduled debates, set to be held in Miami on Oct. 15, will feature a similar “town meeting” style.

Biden is to have his own opportunity to hone his skills taking questions from voters on Thursday, when he participates in a televised town hall hosted by CNN.

The visit to Pennsylvania is Trump’s second to the battleground state in the last week, after he attended a Sept. 11 memorial event in Shanksville on Friday.