WASHINGTON - The shutdown of BP's Alaska pipeline came as no surprise to environmentalists, who said on Tuesday that oil companies have failed for years to adequately safeguard Alaska's wilderness.
"For at least the last decade, BP Alaska operations (have) consistently failed to live up to the company's nurtured environmental-friendly image," Eleanor Huffines, Alaska regional director of The Wilderness Society, said by telephone. "There was corrosion, the pipelines were failing ... so it's not a surprise at all."
Corrosion in the pipeline from BP's vast Prudhoe Bay oil field prompted the company to start a five-day shutdown process on Sunday; the US Energy Information Administration said on Tuesday the field won't be fully back online until after January.
The shutdown has sent oil prices soaring over US$77 a barrel.
Bob Malone, head of BP's US operations, said on Monday the company decided to replace both pipelines in the field due to corrosion.
Huffines said: "It was very preventable ... I think it's incredibly disingenuous to say that now that the company has realized that there's such significant problems, that they're being responsible. They've ignored them for decades."
BP has a history of poor environmental performance that goes back at least a decade, according to the non-profit Alaska Wilderness League, a Washington-based environmental group.
The Environmental Protection Agency is investigating a large spill that occurred at Prudhoe Bay in March, which dumped approximately 200,000 gallons (909,200 litres), enough to cover the area of a football field, the league said.
In July, the league said 57 of about 2,200 oil wells in the Prudhoe Bay complex were shut down for inspection and possible repair; 12 of them were not shut until workers complained.
In 2001 and 2002, North Slope oil workers complained that budget cuts forced them to work with worn-out and dangerous equipment, but BP said its operations were safe.
The league said BP and its contractors paid a total of US$25 million in penalties and fees in 1998 and 1999 after an investigation showed illegal re-injection of hazardous wastes at a BP North Slope production facility from 1993 to 1995.
Richard Fineberg, an economic and environmental consultant based in Fairbanks, Alaska, said the oil companies drilling on the North Slope have had problems with maintenance, which is key to preventing pipeline corrosion and the spills it can cause.
"Unfortunately, the pattern in almost any corporate situation is that each of the operations is a cost center, and each cost center wants to minimize costs," Fineberg said. "The result is that if you can't see the danger, you cut costs and you defer maintenance ...
"The (oil) industry is chronically too slow to identify problems and too slow to correct them," Fineberg said.
Story by Deborah Zabarenko
REUTERS NEWS SERVICE
