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Produced water, seawater spill at Kuparuk
Field operator ConocoPhillips Alaska has reported a produced water spill at the Kuparuk River field 2H drill site.
ConocoPhillips Alaska spokeswoman Dawn Patience told Petroleum News March 28 that the company reported the spill March 26 from a six-inch water injection pipeline.
“The spill estimate is approximately 2,650 barrels (111,300 gallons) of produced and seawater,” Patience said.
The produced water contains some 500 parts per million of oil, she said, so the oil content of the spill is estimated at about 50 gallons.
Patience said the company’s incident response team and Alaska Clean Seas responded to the incident immediately and are removing snow and flushing the impacted tundra with fresh water.
The company is working with the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation on a long-term remediation program for the impacted tundra area, Patience said. Mix of seawater and produced water The Department of Environmental Conservation said the spill was estimated to contain a mixture of 30 percent seawater and 70 percent produced water. The release was to both gravel pad and tundra, the department said.
The six-inch produced water/seawater injection line that is the source of the spill transports water from Central Processing Facility No. 2 to drill site 2H for injection, and the department said the leak appears to be under the gravel pad in the cased pipeline. The exact cause of the leak has not been determined, and the department said excavation and inspection of the line may be required to determine the cause of the leak. In addition to ConocoPhillips and the company’s primary spill response contractor, Alaska Clean Seas, the department said additional spill response contractors, CCI, PENCO and the Village Response Team from Barrow have also been mobilized to the site, with a 24-hour cleanup operation under way.
By the end of the day March 30 the department said some 4,620 gallons had been recovered.
The pipeline was de-pressurized and all liquids removed, and closed at both ends.
Approximately two acres of snow-covered tundra and an unknown amount of gravel have been impacted.
The department said March 30 that most of the spill area has been delineated and removal of clean snow on the west side continues. The use of metal-tracked heavy equipment has been approved to assist in removal of snow on the west side, where depths exceed eight feet.
—Kristen Nelson
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