HOUSTON -- Offshore energy companies are breathing easier this morning as a Gulf of Mexico tropical storm is now expected to move away from producing areas, but companies are still on alert as the system develops.

Late Sunday, the National Hurricane Center revised its projected path for Tropical Storm Debby, which formed over the weekend off the western shores of Florida. The erratic weather pattern appeared stalled over the Gulf for most of the weekend as government storm trackers ran into difficulty with providing a more concrete forecast of the route the storm would take.

Though warmer-than-average Gulf of Mexico waters prompted fears that Debby would develop into a hurricane, federal government meteorologists now predict Debby will remain a tropical storm and will weaken into a depression as it moves onshore at the Florida Panhandle, probably by Wednesday.

On Saturday, the National Hurricane Center (NHC) posted a map that had Debby strengthening into a hurricane and moving due west to Texas, hitting the Gulf Coast of that state later in the week somewhere between Houston and Brownsville. That projection prompted evacuation order for some of offshore oil and gas platforms as firms moved swiftly to shut in production.

By Sunday morning, NHC scientists had revised Debby's projected path, putting it on course with parts of Louisiana, still over major offshore drilling and production zones. But as of 9 p.m. Sunday NHC maps showed Debby moving slowly north over the first part of the week and hitting landfall at about Panama City, Fla.

Cable news reported that Debby's outer rings had already spawned fatal tornadoes in the Florida Panhandle. And although the storm veered away from most offshore energy projects, energy production has been curtailed nonetheless.

Over the weekend, BP PLC reported that it had halted all of its Gulf of Mexico operations. BP is one of the most active oil and gas producers in the Gulf.

Though the storm's track was altered by NHC, by late Sunday, BP reported that it was still evacuating as many of its personnel as it could via helicopter. Workers unable to be airlifted out were ordered to hunker down for the storm, should it pass over.

BP officials said their company continued to monitor the storm's track but had deemed it necessary to evacuate all offshore workers as a precaution.

"BP's oil and gas production and drilling operations in the Gulf remain halted until conditions are deemed safe to resume," the company said in a release. "With the storm still active and its track unclear it is too early to speculate when that might be."

Tropical Storm Debby's proximity to offshore energy installations alone could cause oil prices to rise this week after falling sharply due to fears over Europe's debt problems. The Gulf of Mexico accounts for a large share of U.S. domestic crude oil production, and any sign of severe weather disruptions to production usually sends domestic oil prices higher.