BP shuts another Alaskan oilfield after pipeline incident:
report
New York (Platts)--16Aug2006
BP has shut its Alaska North Slope Port McIntyre field because a pipeline
serving the field, just north of its beleaguered Prudhoe Bay field, was partly
knocked off its supports last week, according to the Anchorage Daily News
Wednesday.
About 200 feet of the Port McIntyre pipeline running through the Prudhoe
Bay field was knocked to the ground August 11 by a "sudden surge" within the
line, the newspaper reported. A day earlier, a drilling rig nearly tipped over
onto the pipeline, the Daily News said.
The pipeline, carrying Port McIntyre's current 20,000 b/d of production,
has remained intact, without any leakage, BP spokesman Daren Beaudo told the
newspaper. At one point along the displaced 36-inch pipe, its steel jacket and
thick insulation were gashed open in the fall, he said.
A BP spokesman in Alaska could not be immediately reached for comment.
The pipeline in Port McIntyre carries a mixture of crude, natural gas
liquids and water out of the Point McIntyre field to a western Prudhoe Bay
field separation plant, said Beaudo, according to the Daily News.
An investigation of the incident is underway, said Beaudo, according to
the Daily News.
BP reported August 6 that it would shut the entire 400,000 b/d Prudhoe
Bay field, the largest in the US, to fix severe pipeline corrosion. While the
field's 200,000 b/d eastern operating area has been fully shut, along with
some western area output, the major said five days later that it would ramp up
production in the western operating area from its current 150,000 b/d.
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