SAN FRANCISCO -(Dow Jones)- The Trans-Alaska Pipeline, owned by BP Plc (BP)and other oil majors, remained shut a second day Wednesday, cutting most supplyout of Alaska oilfields, following an oil spill triggered by a power outage.
Pipeline operator Alyeska Pipeline Service Co., owned by BP, ExxonMobil Corp.(XOM), ConocoPhillips (COP) and other oil companies, said North Slope oilproducers have been asked to cut oil sent to the pipeline to 16%. That’s roughly107,000 barrels a day, down from an average of 670,000 barrels a day, saidAlyeska spokeswoman Michelle Egan.
The 800-mile pipeline was shut Tuesday morning after a series of mishaps thatstarted with a power outage that triggered a pipeline valve to open, causing anoil tank to overflow, Alyeska said. There were no injuries, but personnel wereevacuated near the spill area, while safety crews were deployed.
The incident occurs at a time when BP, which owns 47% of the Alaska oilpipeline, is working to contain a giant oil spill in the deep waters of the Gulfof Mexico after an oil rig exploded and sank in April.
On Tuesday, Alyeska had shut down the Alaska pipeline to do routinemaintenance, including testing the fire-command and valve-leak systems at PumpStation 9, about 100 miles south of Fairbanks, when the accident occurred. Aspart of the fire test, the pump station was taken offline from the electricalgrid, and was supposed to continue running on backup power provided by a batteryand a diesel generator, Egan said. The backup power system failed, however, andas a result a valve on the pipeline automatically opened to relieve pressure onthe pipeline. Oil flowed through the valve into a release tank–set up for suchcontingencies–but the tank quickly filled up, overflowed and oil seeped outinto an outer containment area.
Alyeska estimates that at least a few thousand barrels of oil were spilled inthe containment area, although the company hasn’t given an official count.
Cleanup crews are standing by, waiting for Alyeska to complete safetyprocedures before starting to clean up the spill, said Tom DeRuyter, head of thestate Department of Environmental Conservation’s northern Alaska response team.
“Right now, we’re taking a very slow, careful, measured approach,” DeRuytersaid in an interview. “All the oil is in the containment area, it’s not goinganyplace. We have time to make sure no one gets hurt.”
Alyeska wants to make sure that vapors from the spilled oil don’t ignite whenpower is restored to the pump. The company has restarted a generator andrestored power to some important functions at the pumping station, but fullpower to the station hasn’t been restored yet, Egan said.
While the pipeline is out of service, Alyeska is using storage tanks tocontain oil delivered by producers, Egan said. She said some producers might beusing their own storage facilities as well.
-By Cassandra Sweet, Dow Jones Newswires; 415-269-4446; cassandra.sweet
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This post was written by admin on June 13, 2010
