Worries rise over pipeline reliability

Pipeline damage that crippled the nation’s biggest oil field this week is triggering worries about not only the safety record of energy giant BP but also the reliability of the 200,000 miles of pipe that moves oil products across the USA.

Some of that pipe was installed 100 years ago; most in the 1960s and ’70s.

“We’re learning that BP did not do its maintenance, but also that federal regulators have been asleep at the switch,” Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., said Tuesday. He demanded that federal regulators inspect interstate pipelines in the next 30 days “before another disruption causes a national energy emergency.”

BP on Sunday ordered the shutdown of the Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, oil field, source of 8% of oil produced in the USA. A pipeline was dangerously corroded. BP said the line, built in 1977, hadn’t been scrubbed of sludge since 1992.

USA Today