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ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Reuters) - Outgoing Alaska Gov. Frank Murkowski said on Thursday he may sign a deal for a $20 billion North Slope natural gas pipeline even if state lawmakers fail to approve the measure, which has been criticized as too generous to oil companies. Murkowski leaves office on December 4 after losing a reelection bid in August. "We're looking at that as an alternative, but it's far too early to make a definitive determination," he said at a news conference. "We're going to continue to work on it. We might have a surprise before we leave," he said. Even...

Prime ministers from Russia, Bulgaria and Greece agreed Oct. 5 to construct an oil pipeline that will ship predominantly Russian oil transported by tanker across the Black Sea from a receiving port at Burgas, Bulgaria, to Alexandroupolis, Greece. A great deal of Russian and Caspian crude oil ends up getting loaded onto tankers on the Black Sea, but the sea does not offer easy access to the wider oceans. To reach the Mediterranean, tankers first have to pass through the Turkish Straits, which are too small to accommodate anything but the smallest oil tankers and are certainly too tight a...

Showcase pipeline fuels global gas flames By Jorn Madslien Business reporter, BBC News, Acergy Piper, North Sea The technology used to lay gas pipes deep under water is valuable At first sight, there is nothing hi-tech about the vast, rusty vessel that appears to float in the air above the choppy, three-metre waves. Seen from a helicopter, Acergy Piper is clearly too small to be an oil platform, but it does not look like a ship either. If anything it resembles a set from the movies Waterworld and Mad Max. Yet Acergy Piper is central to the heated debate about...

Excerpt - (CNN) -- As part of its coverage of the fifth anniversary of 9/11, CNN Pipeline will stream CNN's television coverage of September 11, 2001, in real time, as the events of the day unfolded. The free replay on Monday will begin at 8:30 a.m. ET, minutes before the first plane hit the World Trade Center in New York. ~ snip ~

CNN will mark the fifth anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks by replaying on the Internet the cable network's coverage of that day's events. Viewers can watch how events unfolded starting at 8:30 a.m., minutes before the first reports of an airplane hitting the World Trade Center. The feed will run in real time, as the network showed it five years ago, until midnight.

ANKARA, Turkey (AP) - A suspected Kurdish rebel attack caused an explosion and huge fire on a natural gas pipeline in eastern Turkey, the Energy Ministry said. The region's governor, Halil Ibrahim Akpinar, said separatist Kurds were suspected of carrying out an attack on the pipeline. He did not say if a bomb was believed to have caused the explosion. The blast shook houses in nearby villages, the private Dogan news agency reported. Gas flows to the nearby province of Erzincan were cut, Energy Ministry spokesman Bulent Ismen said. Paramilitary police sealed off the area and firefighting teams were dispatched...

Problems with BP's leaking pipeline at Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, have a northeast Ohio company working overtime to provide repair parts. The Pipe Line Development Co., known as PLIDCO, is shipping repair fittings by air to Alaska so BP can temporarily fix a portion of its 22-mile system and keep it operating while it takes down another portion, said Kim Smith, PLIDCO's director of marketing. "We have been working two shifts about 20 to 22 hours a day," Smith said. "We are looking to hire skilled welders and machinists immediately." BP, which operates the Alaskan oil field, the nation's largest, pledged...

Fourteen years ago Congress urged the Transportation Department to start regulating low-pressure pipelines such as those blamed for shutting down Alaska's North Slope oil production. But it didn't happen. And only now, after questions about pipe maintenance and two damaging oil spills in Alaska, are officials pushing hard to establish federal rules and standards for such lines. Congress, as part of a pipeline safety law passed in 1992, included among a number of directives that the Transportation Department pay closer attention to low-stress oil and other hazardous liquid pipelines, which still today are exempt from federal regulations. Over the years,...

In a story that ran Aug. 11 about the partial shutdown of an oil field in Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, The Associated Press, relying on information from BP PLC, erroneously reported that the eastern pipeline had not undergone a high-tech "smart pig" inspection since 1992. On Saturday, Aug. 12, the company told the AP that some of its employees were misinformed, and that the eastern pipeline, which began operating in 1977, never had the smart pig inspection. Below is a corrected version of the story: --- PRUDHOE BAY, Alaska (AP) - Federal regulators ordered BP PLC to conduct more rigorous tests...

Excerpt - BP said Friday it would keep one side of the nation's largest oil field open as it replaces 16 miles of pipes. The decision will allow BP to keep funneling up to 200,000 barrels of oil and natural gas from Prudhoe Bay. BP, which operates the oil field, had previously said it would have to completely shut down the oil field after discovering leaks and severe corrosion on the eastern side of the pipeline nearly a week ago. ~ snip ~

Greedy BP (NYSE: BP) skimped on maintenance to make even more money, charged liberal critics of the oil industry on the August 8 “World News with Charles Gibson” and “Nightly News.” Yet NBC’s Lisa Myers and ABC’s Betsy Stark focused on the complaints of those liberal critics without airing out BP’s defense, even though the company explained its pipeline maintenance program the day before in a news conference. “In the last five years,” complained Stark, BP earned $63 billion in profits, sending back $51 billion to shareholders “through buybacks and dividend payouts, but just $1.5 billion” to maintain the Prudhoe...

Slovakia says to buy pipeline stake from YUKOS 2006-08-09 19:19 By Peter Laca BRATISLAVA, Aug 9 (Reuters) - The Slovak government reached a deal with bankrupt Russian oil firm YUKOS on Wednesday to buy back a 49 percent stake in Slovak oil pipeline operator Transpetrol. Economy Minister Lubomir Jahnatek said after negotiations with officials of YUKOS Finance, which formally owns the Transpetrol shares, that the deal was still subject to approval by a U.S. judge overseeing part of YUKOS bankruptcy proceedings. "We need a ruling by a U.S. bankruptcy judge for finalising the matter, and for signing the necessary documentation,"...

Oil giant BP searched for skilled workers and steel pipe Tuesday to replace badly corroded transit lines that this week forced the shutdown of operations at the largest oil field in the U.S. The world's second-largest oil company announced Sunday it was shutting down the Prudhoe Bay oil field after a small leak was found in one of its three transit lines, which bring oil to the 800-mile trans-Alaska pipeline. BP has 22 miles of transit lines and will be replacing two of the lines, or 16 miles of pipe. "We have taken all nonessential persons off the slope," Steve...

Print this story | Email it to an associate. Vol. 11, No. 20 Week of May 14, 2006 Providing coverage of Alaska and northern Canada's oil and gas industry BP: Learning from oil spill lessonsJohnson, Beaudo explain what they think happened in Prudhoe Bay’s largest spill and what the company is learning from the incidentAlan BaileyPetroleum NewsOn March 2 a BP well pad operator discovered a leak in the transit line that delivers oil to the trans-Alaska pipeline from Gathering Center 2 in the western operating area of the giant Prudhoe Bay oil field on Alaska’s North Slope. The...

Lithuanians suspect Russia of dirty tricks By Judy Dempsey International Herald Tribune Published: August 7, 2006 BERLIN: Lithuanian officials asserted Monday that Russia was trying to undermine Poland's purchase of a strategic oil refinery in Lithuania by purposely delaying repairs to a crucial oil pipeline that supplies the refinery. With Russia's energy giants trying to increase their market share both in Eastern and Western Europe, analysts said Monday that the damaged pipeline could weaken competition Russia would face from Orlen, a leading Polish oil refining company. The pipeline was damaged in an accident last month. "The timing of this accident...

BP PLC said Monday it will replace 73 percent of the pipelines from the nation's largest oil field and that production could be closed for weeks or months, crimping the nation's oil supplies at a time of peak demand. BP, the world's second-largest oil company, began shutting down the pipelines on Monday and said it would replace 16 miles of the 22 miles of transit pipeline it operates in the Prudhoe Bay field following a leak discovered Sunday. Company officials told a news conference they did not immediately know how much it would cost to replace the lines. They will...

With no solution to the impasse on the gas pricing issue for the $7-billion Iran-Pakistan-India pipeline project, the three nations today decided to appoint an international consultant for the purpose. A decision to this effect was taken after two-day Secretarial-level trilateral talks failed to create a breakthrough on the issue. The three countries had set up a nine-member committee at the end of day one of their talks on Thursday. After discussing the report of the committee and with the issue of pricing still remaining unresolved, it was decided to appoint an international consultant who would present a formula for...

Lithuania Pipe Dry, Belarus Gets Oil Supplies By Andrei Makhovsky and Darius James Ross Reuters MINSK -- Russia is keeping Belarus well supplied with crude oil even though it shares a pipeline with Lithuania, which Moscow has cut off, after citing a leak, officials in Belarus said Thursday. Their comments may add to speculation that Russian pipeline monopoly Transneft used this weekend's minor leak as a pretext to cut flows to Lithuania as punishment for choosing a Polish buyer for its Mazeikiu refinery over Russian bidders. Mazeikiu was bought in May by Poland's PKN Orlen. Oil officials in Belarus said...

Diggings related to construction of a gas pipeline from Iran to Armenia has partially destroyed remains of the oldest city called "Dragon Stone" (Azhdaha Dashi) in East Azerbaijan province of Iran. "Dragon Stone" includes ruins of an ancient city built 1000 years before Christ and is located at 40 kilometers east of Andarjan village of Varzighan county... "Dragon Stone" was declared a historic site and a protected area... However, Iran's gas company has started digging in the area despite the declaration... The representative of Cultural Heritage and Tourism office has added that studies of the 3000 year old "Dragon Stone"...

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) - Russian energy company OAO Gazprom is studying whether to join a huge Venezuela-backed project to build a South American natural gas pipeline, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said Thursday. "Gazprom and its technicians are studying a project for the construction of a gas pipeline from Venezuela to Argentina," Chavez told Russia's state-run Rossiya television during a visit to Moscow, according to a translation of his remarks.