BP Oil Production Increase at Prudhoe
Alaska Oil giant BP PLC restarted the eastern side of the Prudhoe Bay oil field - shut down since August when a leak was found - and expects production to reach 150,000 barrels a day by the weekend, a BP spokesman said Tuesday.
The eastern side of the country’s largest oil field ceased production Aug. 10, a few days after a leak was discovered in a corroded transit line. Initially, the company expected to shut down the west side of the field as well, but kept that side in operation after determining it could be operated safely. The west side is producing about 200,000 barrels a day.
ยป Source: International Herald Tribune
Production in the northern part of the field adds about 50,000 barrels a day. The entire field normally produces about 450,000 barrels of petroleum products.
BP plans to replace two of three Prudhoe Bay transit lines, or about 16 (26) of 22 miles (35 kilometers) of pipeline, because of corrosion.
The U.S. Department of Transportation on Friday gave BP approval to resume production at three facilities on the east side of the field.
BP spokesman Daren Beaudo said the east side transit line will first be scraped and cleaned with maintenance devices known as “pigs.” Within a few days, a “smart pig” that uses ultrasound will be put through the line to check for thin spots. Cleaning of the line could begin was early as this weekend, he said.
“We are resuming production in the east in a safe, orderly and structured manner,” he said Tuesday.
It is expected to take about a week before the east side of the field reaches a steady state of operation with production at about 150,000 barrels a day. That is still 50,000 barrels a day below pre-leak production because the line where the August leak occurred remains shut down. BP is constructing a bypass on that line.
Corrosion in the west side transit line in March resulted in a spill of up to 267,000 gallons, the largest spill in the history of Prudhoe Bay. BP ended up putting a bypass on that line. The August leak on the east side was much smaller at about 200 gallons.
Steve Marshall, the president of BP Exploration Alaska Inc., told a congressional hearing earlier this month that full Prudhoe Bay production could be restored by late October.
BP expects to get replacement pipe by the end of the year with construction beginning early next year.
I would like to note that in the recent investigations of the North Slope BP oil pipe line leaks that employees have spoken out on the leaks years before they happened. A friend of mine who is now retired from BP was an engineer and made a report showing the needs of corrosion maintenance for the pipes so that they would not spring leaks. What came out of it was in a sense, say it again and you will be fired. So, the engineers turned and looked the other way on the needs of corrosion reports and maintenance. The bottom line is that if there is no whistle blower protection for the employees who know what is going on and could report what is needed to prevent leaks of the pipe line, then they will not report them and the pipe will have more leaks at a later time. No one is going to report what is needed and be fired later for doing so. So the choice is to provide whistle blower protection or have more leaks in the future