Sunday, August 06, 2006

BP Shuts Biggest US Oil Field Due To Spill



The Prudhoe Bay oil field spill on Alaska's North Slope is seen on Monday, March 13, 2006. Cleaning up the spill estimated at up to 267,000 gallons in the Prudhoe Bay oil field has been slow going because workers are having to take frequent breaks to protect themselves against extreme conditions. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer)

Reuter's reports:
The world's second-largest publicly traded oil company is under a U.S. grand jury investigation over an oil spill in Alaska. About 6,400 barrels of oil leaked from a Prudhoe Bay pipeline in March, almost a year after an explosion at a Texas refinery killed 15 workers and led to the biggest fine by U.S. refinery safety regulators.

The discovery of the corrosion and a leak of four to five barrels "have called into question the condition of the oil transit lines at Prudhoe Bay," Bob Malone, BP America President, said in the statement. "We will not resume operation of the field until we and government regulators are satisfied that they can be operated safely and pose no threat to the environment."

BP owns 26.36 percent of the Prudhoe Bay field. Other shareholders include Exxon Mobil Corp., ConocoPhillips and Chevron Corp. Alaska provides about 10 percent of BP's worldwide oil production.




This is why they can not be trusted:
The oil company blamed for the North Slope's largest oil spill said Tuesday its inspectors were aware of corrosion in a pipeline months before it burst, but believed the threat to be "manageable."


Every eight months, 10.8 million gallons of oil (the same amount of oil that destroyed Prince William Sound when the Exxon Valdez ran aground on rocks in Alaska) washes into our coastal waters, because of runoff from streets and from other areas.

If it's not incompetence, it's intentional corruption. It's time to put these oil companies out of business. We need to get off of oil. It's killing us.

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