Tougher safety rules may run 1,200 miles

Houston Chronicle ^ | Aug. 31, 2006, 10:25PM | TOM FOWLER

[thackney]

Another 1,200 miles of U.S. pipelines, including those run by BP in Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, would fall under rigorous inspection and safety rules under a proposal released by pipeline regulators Thursday.

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The proposed rules for rural, low-stress pipelines would require regular cleaning of the lines by so-called "scraping pigs," internal inspections by "smart pigs" and a comprehensive corrosion monitoring and prevention program.

"A strong and clearly defined pipeline safety program is an absolute minimum," said Thomas Barrett, administrator for the Department of Transportation's Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration.

The rules have been in the works for two years but were fast-tracked after the discovery in March of a leak in a 22-mile network of oil pipelines in Alaska's Prudhoe Bay operated by BP. A 60-day public comment period begins this week, after which regulators will decide if the rules need to be changed before going into effect.

Low-pressure pipelines and pipelines in rural, uninhabited areas fell outside the jurisdiction of federal regulators for years, although the Prudhoe Bay pipeline was supposed to be monitored by Alaska regulators.

Prudhoe Bay normally pumps around 400,000 barrels per day of oil, or 8 percent of U.S. domestic supply, but BP shut down half of the field in early August after government-mandated inspections revealed severe corrosion inside a segment of the eastern oil transit line at the field.

BP is planning to replace about 16 miles of pipeline, a process that is expected to stretch into early next year. But the company has said it is working on a plan to resume the flow of some of the east side production by bypassing sections still being inspected using another nearby pipeline.

In a call with reporters Thursday, Barrett said BP has not yet presented those bypass plans, however, so he could give no timetable for when east side production could resume.

Barrett said BP officials still need to gather and show his agency more data on the integrity of sections of the eastern half before they will even allow more detailed internal inspections to be conducted. BP has not finished installing a bypass mechanism downstream from the pipeline to catch any debris knocked loose by the planned inspections, Barrett said, which is another precondition of the internal inspections.

BP said this week it completed external inspections using ultrasound equipment on about 2,500 feet of pipe on the eastern side of the field and about 5,300 feet on the western side. So far the inspections have found no additional integrity issues, the company said.

Kemp Copeland, BP's Prudhoe Bay field manager, said he was ''encouraged" by the results, according to Bloomberg News.