Age and neglect meet in global oil pipelines

BP’s shutdown of the largest U.S. oil field may be the first of many, as decaying pipelines threaten to add to already soaring energy prices in the next decade.

“We’ll look back on this event as the Pearl Harbor Day in energy,” said Matthew Simmons, chairman of energy investment bank Simmons & Co. in Houston. The chance that the leaks and corrosion found at Prudhoe Bay in Alaska by BP, the British oil company, are an isolated occurrence is “zero,” said Simmons, who is writing a book on aging oil infrastructure.
International Herald Tribune