Alaska pipeline restarted, oil flowing

by Mary Pemberton / The Associated Press Fairbanks Daily News Miner

ANCHORAGE, Alaska - Oil began flowing again Monday through the trans-Alaska pipeline after workers installed a pipe to bypass a leak at a pump house station on the North Slope.

Alyeska Service Pipeline Co. said it hoped to increase the amount of oil in the 800-mile pipeline to 500,000 barrels during the next 24 hours.

The pipeline was carrying about 630,000 barrels a day before the leak was discovered on Jan. 8 in an underground pipe encased in concrete.

"We are really monitoring the pipeline and the equipment very carefully as we bring it up," said Michelle Egan, a spokeswoman for Alyeska, which operates the pipeline.

The pipeline delivers about 13 percent of the nation's daily domestic oil production to tankers for West Coast delivery.

The oil began flowing again after crews completed a 157-foot bypass.

"It is a complicated process," said Rachel Baker-Sears, a spokeswoman for the Joint Information Center set up in Fairbanks to handle the crisis.

She said the restart went smoothly, but it could take a few days for the pipeline to return to previous pumping levels.

During the initial shutdown, the flow was scaled back to 5 percent of previous levels and oil was collected in two large storage tanks at Prudhoe Bay.

The pipeline was temporarily restarted after four days but was shut down again on Saturday so the bypass pipe could be installed.

During the shutdown, a containment vault was used to collect the estimated 13,326 gallons of oil that leaked from the pump station pipe.

Egan said there had been no known harm to wildlife or the environment.



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Pump station leak shuts down TAPS

Pump station leak shuts down Trans Alaska Pipeline System

By CASEY GROVE

Published: January 8th, 2011 07:23 PM

The 800-mile trans-Alaska oil pipeline is shut down due to a leak at Pump Station 1 on the North Slope.

tool nameclose tool goes here North Slope oil producers have been asked to cut their production to 5 percent of normal.

An oil line encased in concrete leaked an unknown quantity of crude oil just outside a booster pump building, according to Alyeska Pipeline Service Co. spokeswoman Michelle Egan. Alyeska operates the line and its pump stations.

A crew doing a routine inspection noticed the leak this morning and Alyeska shut down the pipeline at about 9 a.m., Egan said.

"There's no visible oil on the tundra," Egan said. "We believe it's all inside that casing."

While Alyeska staff believe the leak is contained, Egan said, they wouldn't know for sure if it had escaped that concrete structure until crews had a chance to excavate around the pipe. Crews are working to determine how to fix the line and get the pipeline running, Egan said.

Alyeska is unsure when oil might start flowing, she said.

"We want to make sure that we aren't going to make the situation worse by restarting, so we're being very careful and methodical about that," Egan said.

BP is in the process of cutting off production at the fields it operates, said Steve Rinehart, Alaska spokesman for the oil company. It will take time for wells to be shut in and pipelines and other facilities to be freeze protected.

Normal production from the North Slope fields averages around 630,000 barrels a day of oil. A 5 percent production level would be about 31,500 barrels a day. The oil fields have limited storage capacity, and the production that occurs will go into storage while the trans-Alaska pipeline is shut off.

BP runs most of the oil fields on behalf of itself and the other leaseholders. Conoco Phillips and Pioneer Natural Resources also run fields. BP, Conoco and Exxon Mobil are the major producers on the North Slope.

Rinehart said it was unclear how long the pipeline shutdown would last.

The pipeline runs from the North Slope to a tanker port in Valdez. Pump Station 1 is at the beginning of the pipeline. Alyeska runs the pipeline for the five oil companies that own it: BP, Conoco, Exxon, Koch Industries and Chevron.