BP completes inspections on 8,000 feet of Alaskan oil pipelines

Anchorage (Platts)--30Aug2006

BP has completed ultrasonic inspections of nearly 8,000 feet of pipeline
at its Prudhoe Bay oil field in Alaska without finding any more serious
problems with corrosion, the company said late Tuesday.

Output from the 400,000 b/d field -- the largest in North America -- has
been halved since the start of this month as BP shut in the eastern operating
area after detecting severe corrosion in a major pipeline from Flow Station 2.

The company has now completed an inspection of 2,500 feet of pipeline in
the eastern operating and about 5,300 feet in the western operating area.

"To date, all of our inspections have found no integrity issues beyond
those identified in the initial inline inspection," the company said.

BP also said it had stripped 15,000 feet of insulation material from
pipelines on the eastern side to facilitate ultrasound inspections, but
insulation removal on the western side is still suspended following the
discovery of asbestos in some of the material.

BP has made no comment on the condition of pipelines in the current
inspection but the chairman of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission,
John Norman, said that the company had told him it has so far found no loss of
pipeline wall thickness greater than 40% in the eastern area Prudhoe pipelines
beyond the one pipeline from Flow Station 2 where 75% loss of wall thickness
was discovered in early August.

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