Posted on 08/11/2006 5:31:26 AM PDT by thackney
Oil major BP Plc said on Friday it was pleased the U.S. government saw no need now to shut down the western portion of its giant Prudhoe Bay oilfield in Alaska, and reiterated it would make a decision on whether to proceed with its full closure by early next week.
BP, reacting to a Corrective Action Order (CAO) issued earlier by the Department of Transport (DOT), said it would not resume output from the closed eastern portion of the 400,000 barrel per day (bpd) field without prior approval of the government.
"We are analyzing the CAO and determining the actions and resources required to continue use of oil transit lines on the western half of the field," it said a statement.
"BPXA (Exploration Alaska) is pleased that DOT states it is not aware of any data concerning the current condition of the pipe in the Western Operating Area that it believes would necessitate an immediate shutdown of operations on the line."
ping
Good news!
Nice, CYA. So BP minimizes its maintenance, because an outage does not mean a loss in revenue, and now has the gubmint saying "Carry On". Now when the pipe explodes, who pays????
How would the pipe explode? It is difficult to even get crude oil to burn.
I meant explode under pressure, or leak.
I guess that the federal government would, seeing as how it's pretty clear from the article that the federal government runs the oil industry in the US.
That would be the same people paying for repairs now, the owners of the field.
You don't think they were given a free insurance policy to keep the oil flowing? Well, lets hope not.
No, I don't. This still has 260,000 BPD shut in and hopefully will lower to 215,000 soon. If you include the problems from March which started the investigation that found this problem, the estimate of repair cost is at $200 million. This does not include lost revenue.
$200 million cost to repair aging pipeline
http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1155246610607&call_pageid=968350072197&col=969048863851
BP PLC and its partners in the Prudhoe Bay oil field in Alaska will have to spend about $200 million (U.S.) inspecting and repairing a corroded pipeline system that shut down the U.S.'s largest oil field. But lots of numbers are being tossed around. The extent of the repairs is still unknown as some other transit lines still have not completed the smart pigging and complete inspection.
Including costs to clean up and repair a line that leaked in March, the "rough estimate" rises to about $200 million, said Kemp Copeland, Greater Prudhoe Bay field manager for BP.
DOT--not just roads.
Time to start a new pipeline running from ANWAR.
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