Total shutdown averted
Western portion will be vigilantly monitored, company says
By WESLEY LOY
Anchorage Daily News
Published: August 12, 2006
Last Modified: August 12, 2006 at 07:05 AM
BP executives on Friday abandoned plans to completely shut down the vast Prudhoe Bay oil field for fear of pipeline leaks, saying a closer look at key pipes showed the western half of the field could keep pumping safely.
See testing methods below... jeezzz
That means Prudhoe -- normally averaging 400,000 barrels a day, a big component of total U.S. oil output -- will produce at only about half capacity in coming weeks as BP moves to tighten up pipeline maintenance.
BP executives laid out extraordinary measures to prevent leaks from a key 5-mile section of pipe, known as a transit line, on the field's west side. The precautions include continuous ground and air patrols by crews looking for leaks.
The company came up with the plan to keep Prudhoe at half strength after consulting Friday with state and federal regulators. They pored over 1,400 ultrasonic inspections -- tests that can reveal thinning or holes in steel pipeline walls -- conducted along the pipe and concluded that western Prudhoe could keep running safely.
what, What, WHAT?
"With greatly enhanced surveillance and response capability, I am confident we can continue to safely operate the line," said Bob Malone, president of BP America.
Friday's announcement means BP's startling original plan, announced last Sunday, to close the nation's largest oil field entirely will not be played out.
Through the week, the company had gradually closed down the hundreds of wells and processing plants across Prudhoe's eastern side, but left the western side up for the most part.
BP executives had said a leak from an east-side pipeline Sunday had shaken their confidence in the integrity of pipelines elsewhere in the field, especially on the western side. Right after finding the leak, BP started a shutdown of the field, a move regulators said they didn't order.
In a statement Friday, the company said it intends to replace 16 miles of transit lines by early next year. It also said it's possible engineers can find safe ways to boost Prudhoe's production to more than half capacity.
So they are going to put even more pressure on a system with very questionable integrity? Oh my...
The transit lines are major arteries within Prudhoe, feeding crude oil from across the field into the mouth of the trans-Alaska pipeline, which runs 800 miles south to the Valdez tanker port.
Pending the pipeline replacements, the company vowed to keep a much closer eye than normal on the 5-mile westside transit line. The pipe links to another, shorter segment that failed this spring, allowing 201,000 gallons of oil to spill onto the tundra. It was the largest oil spill ever on the North Slope.
But the western pipes are fine, right? What?
Among the monitoring measures BP announced Friday:
? The company will fly over the western transit line daily, looking for leaks with infrared cameras. Oil coming out of Prudhoe wells is hot, and the infrared can detect small leaks from the heavily insulated lines by sensing changes in a pipe's surface temperature.
? Two vehicles equipped with spill response equipment and infrared gear will patrol the line 24 hours a day. Also, pipeline walkers will inspect the line by sight 10 times a day.
The company also vowed that by the end of November it would run devices known as pigs through its western transit line to clean out sludge and test for corrosion-related wall thinning or holes.
But I thought the ultrasound tests said everything was fine?
Regulators have criticized BP for not using these pigs for many years on the transit lines, allowing sludge and bacteria to build up, a recipe for corrosion that can eat through the steel. BP now is under orders from the U.S. Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration to do so.
BP spokesmen have conceded the company should have used the pigs, though they note that transit lines aren't high corrosion risks because of the waterfree oil they carry and that the outbreak of corrosion caught them by surprise.
Aside from regulators, BP's pipeline maintenance practices are under scrutiny from members of Congress as well as a federal grand jury, which has issued BP a sweeping subpoena for documents.
In another development Friday, BP spokesmen and state Department of Environmental Conservation officials said the east-side transit line leak last Sunday, which triggered BP's field shutdown, was bigger than originally thought.
They said 15 barrels, or 630 gallons, of crude oil had been collected off the grassy tundra alongside the pipeline. The recovered oil is triple the amount BP initially indicated had spilled, and the final tally on the spill volume could go slightly higher, DEC officials said.
BP owns about 26 percent of the Prudhoe Bay field and operates it on behalf of itself and partners including Exxon Mobil and Conoco Phillips, each of which own about 36 percent.
At normal output, Prudhoe Bay's 400,000 barrels a day is almost half of overall North Slope production, 8 percent of U.S. production, and 2.6 percent of total U.S. crude oil supply counting imports.
Prudhoe's output stood Friday at 155,000 barrels per day.
After BP announced its shutdown, market prices for crude oil spiked higher temporarily on fears the field shutdown could last weeks or months, creating shortages for refineries and higher gasoline prices at retail pumps.
On Friday, the price of North Slope crude for delivery to West Coast spot markets closed at $73.05 a barrel, up 35 cents from Thursday but well off the near-record $75.68 closing price on Monday, the first trading day after BP announced the shutdown.
Crude oil prices are extremely important not only to refiners and consumers, but to the state government. State officials had estimated that a full shutdown of Prudhoe Bay would cost the state $6.4 million per day in royalty and tax collections and would run the state budget into the red in about 60 days.