⁍ BP BP.L has begun to evacuate four offshore U.S. Gulf of Mexico oil platforms and secure facilities as Tropical Storm Zeta sprang up in the Caribbean Sea.

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⁍ The 27th named storm of this year’s Atlantic Hurricane season, Zeta strengthened on Sunday and is forecast to become a hurricane before it nears Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula late Monday.

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⁍ Some Gulf of Mexico oil producers have had to remove offshore workers and halt oil and gas production six times or more in this year’s extremely active storm season.

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– Oil giant BP has begun evacuating four offshore oil platforms in the Gulf of Mexico ahead of Tropical Storm Zeta, Reuters reports. The storm is expected to strengthen into a hurricane before hitting Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula late Monday. If it does, it would be the 10th named storm of this year’s Atlantic hurricane season and the first to make landfall on the US mainland. Louisiana and the Florida Panhandle have already declared states of emergency. “With forecasts indicating the storm will move across the Central and/or Northeastern Gulf of Mexico in the next few days, we are taking steps to respond,” BP said in a statement. Some Gulf of Mexico oil producers have had to remove offshore workers and halt oil and gas production six times or more in this year’s extremely active storm season. Zeta’s winds could hit 75 miles per hour, a category one hurricane on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale, by late Monday. The storm is heading for a US landfall between Louisiana and the Florida Panhandle. If Zeta became a hurricane and struck the US mainland, it would top the record of 10 named storms to make US landfall that was set by Hurricane Delta only weeks earlier.