Shipping operations on the Texas coast began to batten down Monday as a major storm bears down on the region. Houston pilots stopped boarding outbound vessels on the ship channel at around 2 pm CDT (1900 GMT) Monday, the West Gulf Maritime Association said in a statement. Galveston-Texas City and Brazos pilots are expected to shut down operations near dusk. The release also said offshore lightering operations have ceased until the weather improves. Chevron has evacuated some non-essential personal from its US Gulf Coast production facilities, but production has not been impacted, spokeswoman Isabel Ordonez said. Article continues below… Sign up for Global Alert today. Platts Global Alert is a complete real-time information service for the global energy industry, providing breaking reports of deals done, price indicators for crude and products and more than 200 end-of-day assessments. ExxonMobil, Shell and BP haven’t cut any production because of the storm, […]