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Providing coverage of Alaska and northern Canada's oil and gas industry
September 2006

Vol. 11, No. 36 Week of September 03, 2006

Compressor fixed at Prudhoe Bay

Mary Pemberton

Associated Press Writer

Partial production has been restored to the Prudhoe Bay oil field after operator BP fixed a compressor that went down Aug. 23, a company spokesman said Aug. 28.

Production at the country’s largest oil field — already cut in half because of problems found in corroded transit pipes — was further reduced Aug. 23 when a mechanical problem was discovered in a compressor at one of the field’s gathering stations.

The company fixed the compressor and production was restored Aug. 27, said BP Exploration (Alaska) spokesman Steve Rinehart.

The compressor that failed handles natural gas that is produced with the oil and water during the processing of crude. Only the western side of Prudhoe is producing oil following the shutdown of the eastern half earlier in August.

After the compressor problem arose, production fell from 200,000 barrels a day to 110,000 barrels. Prudhoe had been producing about 400,000 barrels a day of oil — about half of all North Slope production — when workers Aug. 6 discovered a leak in a transit line on the eastern side of the field. BP, which plans to replace 16 miles of corroded Prudhoe transit pipes, shut down the eastern side of the field but has managed to keep the western side open.

It was the second leak found in a transit line (feeder pipelines), which transport oil to the trans-Alaska pipeline. In March, a leak in a corroded transit line pipe resulted in a spill of up to 267,000 gallons of crude — the largest spill ever on the North Slope. A bypass was put on that line to keep it operating.

BP expects to resume the removal of insulation from a western side pipeline the week of Aug. 28, Rinehart said. That work was temporarily halted Aug. 23 when BP became aware that workers possibly were being exposed to materials that contain between 5 and 10 percent asbestos.

The asbestos issue arose as the transit line was being stripped of insulation to better examine it for corrosion.

Rinehart said workers are being trained on how to safely handle the material.

Daren Beaudo, a BP Exploration (Alaska) spokesman, said the material containing asbestos has not been found on pipes in the eastern half of the field, where different materials and different application methods were used when the lines were installed in the late 1970s.

For many years, ARCO operated the eastern side of Prudhoe and BP operated the western side. The two operating areas were consolidated under BP in 2000.





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