Posted on 03/26/2022 5:44:34 AM PDT by NautiNurse
The company that operates the trans-Alaska pipeline has called in backup crews to contend with massive amounts of snow piled on top of its oil storage tanks in Valdez, which has damaged infrastructure and vented petroleum vapors to the environment in what state regulators say are violations of the Clean Air Act.
The incident has forced the Valdez Marine Terminal’s operator, Alyeska Pipeline Service Co., to take multiple tanks out of service, though it says there have been no impacts to oil shipments so far.
To try to prevent further damage, Alyeska is now sending up dozens of respirator-equipped contractors for the painstaking work of removing the snow.
Those crews are working nearly around the clock, according to Michelle Egan, an Alyeska spokeswoman. The contractors, who are roped to the top of the tanks, cannot use plows or power tools, so they’re cutting off blocks of snow with saws and sliding them off the edge.
It takes up to two weeks for a crew of 10 or 11 people to remove all the snow from each tank, though it’s not necessarily the company’s goal to completely clear all the tanks, Egan said.
“That is taking tremendous focus,” she said. “We do things very methodically, very safely — it takes as long as it takes.”
[Snip]
Removing the snow from the tanks is a gargantuan task: Each is an acre in size and holds up to a half-million barrels of crude — about 2.5% of America’s daily oil demand.
[Snip]
The tanks were originally designed when more and warmer oil was flowing down the pipeline, which used to thaw more of the snow on top of the roofs. But that’s changed as the volume of crude produced on the North Slope has diminished.
[Snip]
(Excerpt) Read more at adn.com ...
There are 14 Valdez storage tanks. Each storage tank is an acre in size and holds up to a half-million barrels of crude — about 2.5% of America’s daily oil demand.
Must be from all that global warming that I keep hearing about.
Wasn't all the arctic ice supposed to be melted by now?
Poor guys. They could never have seen that one coming.
It’s never snowed in Alaska before?
Or is this just part of the “new world order?”
Didn't you get the Dem 'talking points'? Now it's called "climate change" - agree to the Dems' demands, or Mother Earth kills the hostages...
;>)
More snow = global warming. Slavery = freedom.
The use of the term “Climate Change” is so they can cover both ends.
Things heat up - it’s global warming. Cool down = Global cooling - both deemed abnormal and due to “human activity.”
This is so they can implement their NWO.
The tanks were originally designed when more and warmer oil was flowing down the pipeline, which used to thaw more of the snow on top of the roofs. But that’s changed as the volume of crude produced on the North Slope has diminished.
The tanks clearly are being fully utilized at this time, the article states that the snow would’ve melted off when they filled the tanks with heated Alaskan crude as was the case when the pipeline was almost fully utilized. I read somewhere (a couple weeks ago) that the pipeline is only a 60% capacity.
Can’t move it by pipeline? Guess we will move it by tanker along the pacific coast. What could go wrong?
But the terminally dense either don't get it or can't wrap their heads around that. It just HAS to be those SUVs.
Another example of Lesko Brandon's diminished capacity.
Before the 1980’s, our climate had never, ever changed...It had always remained the same...In the 1980’s, man began the dreadful act of changing our climate and destroying our world......
Livescience.com: The scientific community began to unite for action on climate change in the 1980s...
which has damaged infrastructure and vented petroleum vapors to the environment in what state regulators say are violations of the Clean Air Act
LOL you have to vent to keep from blowing everything up, probably nothing more than a fumes recovery system is temporally down.
So much for those fears of icebergs melting at unprecedented rates, I guess. 😋
Well, I guess this falls into the category of true tragedy.
The flow of crude out of Alaska has diminished. Thank you Joe Bribeim.
Ah...memories...I typed most the invoices for Caterpillar equipment sold to Alyeska (from NC Fabick) for building the pipeline (well, I used an IBM MTST). The pipeline is getting old. Also remember one of our mechanics in Alaska a few years later made more than the company President (overtime).
Yes, the current situation has much more to do with purposefully diminished oil flow than excessive snow.
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