Diversified Oil and Gas Holdings (DVFI)

[Fishing at Surfside]

More problems with the Alaska pipeline

ANCHORAGE, Alaska -- Both the nation’s largest oil field and the trans-Alaska oil pipeline were shut down today after poor weather at both ends of the 800-mile pipeline caused havoc.
BP PLC said high winds were to blame for a power outage that shut down Prudhoe Bay in northern Alaska. Production fell to about 20,000 barrels today; about 350,000 barrels were produced Monday.

Flooding near the terminus of the pipeline, caused by heavy rain in south-central Alaska, is suspected of knocking out fiber-optic communication lines along the pipeline, said Mike Heatwole, spokesman for Alyeska Pipeline Service Co.

Operators lost communications to remote valves that can be closed in the event of a spill.

Heatwole said company protocol calls for the pipeline shutdown when valves cannot be closed from long distance. The valves must be staffed by crews that can manually operate the valves, he said.

At Prudhoe Bay, Beaudo said, layers of dust and dirt blown by high winds built up on high voltage insulators on power lines and the field, causing a short just before 3 a.m.

“The whole field came down,” Beaudo said.

The power station continued to operate. “It’s the distribution system that had the problem,” he said.

Winds were blowing about 12 mph at Deadhorse near the time of the outage, said Tom Dang of the National Weather Service. However, they were significantly higher most of Monday, with peak gusts of about 66 mph midday Monday.

Beaudo said crews would work today to wash insulators, restore power and ramp up production. He could not predict whether the work would take more than one day.

Communications are a critical component for operations of the trans-Alaska pipeline, which carries nearly 17 percent of the nation’s domestic oil supply daily.

“We lost communication with five of our remote gate valves just north of Valdez at about 4 a.m. Alaska time,” Heatwole said.

The remote valves are important when there is a pipeline leak. They are closed to limit the amount of oil dispatched from sections of the line.

“When we lose communication, we shut the pipeline down,” he said.
Flooding and mudslides along the Richardson Highway, which parallels the pipeline and is the only roadway out of Valdez, disrupted vehicle traffic. The Alaska Department of Transportation closed a 65-mile stretch of the highway, starting near Valdez.

The Weather Service said 6.5 inches of rain fell Sunday and Monday at Valdez. Flooding in Keystone Canyon near Valdez hit four bridges hard and moved one five feet, said DOT spokeswoman Shannon McCarthy.

Instead of driving, Heatwole said, crews would be sent by helicopter to the remote valve sites. By midday Tuesday, crews had reached at least two valves and were in transit to others, he said.

Separate crews will seek the cause of the break in the fiberoptic line, Heatwole said.

He could not predict when the oil would again flow through the pipeline.

“We hope to know in the next couple of hours what the projected timeframe is,” he said this morning.

High water along other roads in Valdez was hampering Alyeska’s ability to staff the Valdez Marine Terminal, where oil is loaded onto tankers. The terminal is across Port Valdez from the city and a road leading to it was affected by flooding.

Alyeska said it would limit the number of personnel required to report to work at the terminal until officials could verify the integrity of a bridge on the road.

Essential employees reported to work at the Valdez harbor and were transported across Port Valdez by boat. Nearly 500 Alyeska employees travel the road to work each day.

The entire Prudhoe Bay oil field had produced more than 400,000 barrels a day — or 8 percent of total U.S. output — until leaks and the discovery of pipe corrosion led the company to begin shutting down the eastern half of the field Aug. 6.

The eastern side of the field was restarted late last month as the company began to clean out the eastern transit pipeline.

BP workers this week are continuing to scrape and clean Prudhoe’s east side transit line with devices called maintenance pigs. The work follows intensive ultrasonic inspections and other sound wave tests.

Next, workers will put a smart pig that uses ultrasound through the line to check for thin spots. BP officials declined to say exactly when that would occur, only that they were working on a two-week maintenance effort that began Sept. 30.

BP has said it ultimately will replace 16 of 22 miles of transit lines. It expects to get replacement pipe by the end of the year, with construction beginning early next year.

http://www.bellinghamherald.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061010/NEWS/61010010