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Cleanup continues at Milne Point spill
Cleanup continues at the site of the Feb. 28 Milne Point tract 14 production line spill.
The Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation, Division of Spill Prevention and Response, said in a March 18 situation report that engineering calculations by field operator Hilcorp Alaska show an estimated release of 339 barrels of produced water to the pad and tundra, estimated at 35 percent crude oil and 65 percent produced water.
SPAR said the cause of the production line rupture is under investigation. Fluid escaped from an estimated one-quarter inch diameter hole in the six o’clock position on the 10-inch pipeline.
Tract 14 wells were initially shut in, but production began again within 24 hours after installation of a temporary bypass line restoring flow to production.
Cleanup down to down to one shift Hilcorp ran 24-hour operations to recover released product, operations which were adjusted to one shift on March 17. Work included segregating clean snow, removing contaminated snow, defining the spill impact on the tundra plant community, establishing ice treatment cells for the waterflood/flush recovery tactic and maintaining waste management and staging resources.
Cleanup workers recovered some 2,000 cubic yards of snow impacted by the produced fluids and stockpiled it in ice cells capped with lake water and surrounded by exclusion fence. SPAR said the snow would be melted on site in a snow melter and the fluids injected for enhanced oil recovery through an approved injection well. Some eight cubic yards of contaminated gravel were removed from the edge of the gravel pad.
Field operations will continue using the flood/flush and recovery tactic removing produced fluids north and south of the pipeline road crossing at the Tract 14 intersection.
- Petroleum News
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