BP’s Alaska pipelines in danger of rupturing

The huge pipeline system that moves oil, gas and waste between BP’s operations in Alaska is plagued by severe corrosion, an internal maintenance report says.

The document, obtained by the independent investigative journalism group ProPublica, shows that as of October 1, at least 148 BP pipelines on Alaska’s North Slope received an ”F-rank” from the company.

BP workers say this means inspections have found that more than 80 per cent of the pipe wall is corroded and could rupture.

Most of the pipelines carry toxic or flammable substances. The document says many metal walls of the F-ranked pipes are worn within millimetres of bursting, risking an explosion or spills.

BP oil workers say the company’s fire and gas warning systems are unreliable, that the giant turbines that pump oil and gas through the system are ageing and that some oil and waste holding tanks are verging on collapse.

BP’s Alaska spokesman, Steve Rinehart, said the company had ”an aggressive and comprehensive pipeline inspection and maintenance program”, which included spending millions of dollars and regularly testing for safety, reliability and corrosion.

Although an F-rank was serious for a pipeline, he said it did not necessarily mean a current safety risk. Mr Rinehart said BP would immediately reduce the operating pressure in worrisome lines until it had completed repairs.

”We will not operate equipment or facilities that we believe are unsafe,” he said.

Mr Rinehart did not respond to questions about what portion of BP’s extensive pipeline system was affected or whether 148 F-rankings were more or less than normal, except to say the company had more than 2600 kilometres of pipeline and carried out more than 100,000 inspections a year.

In 2006, two spills from corroded pipes in Alaska placed the company’s maintenance problems in the national spotlight.

At the time, BP temporarily shut down all transmission of oil from the North Slope to the continental US, cutting off 8 per cent of the nation’s oil supply while it examined its pipeline system.

Marc Kovac, a BP mechanic and welder, said some pipes had hundreds of patches on them and that BP’s efforts to rehabilitate the lines were not funded well enough to keep up with their rate of decline.

”They’re going to run this out as far as they can without leaving one dollar on the table when they leave,” Mr Kovac said.

BP employees said several of the 120 turbines compressing gas and pushing it through the pipelines had been modified to run at higher stress levels and temperatures than they were originally designed to handle.

The employees said giant tanks that held tonnes of toxic fluid and waste were sagging under the load of corrosive sediment and could collapse.

”When you make a complaint about it, rather than fix it, they come up with another Band-Aid [solution],” said Kris Dye, a BP oil worker and union representative on the North Slope.

”It’s very frustrating.”

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