Congress finds BP Alaska problems

Simmons: BP’s CEO “AWOL”

Investigators in the U.S. Congress have found “significant problems” with the way BP Plc maintained its Prudhoe Bay facility in Alaska, sources close to the inquiry said, setting the stage for a heated hearing on Thursday into corrosion that threatened to shut down the biggest U.S. oil field.

Staff of the House Energy and Commerce Committee have been on Alaska’s North Slope in recent weeks to interview employees of London-based oil giant BP (Charts) and Alaska environmental officials after a leaky pipeline forced BP to shut down half of the field in early August.

The committee staff, which has wide-sweeping investigative authority, has found “significant problems” with BP’s maintenance of Prudhoe Bay pipelines, staff aides said on condition of anonymity. BP is already part of a criminal probe into a much bigger Alaskan pipeline rupture in March.

Prudhoe Bay normally pumps around 400,000 barrels per day of oil, or 8 percent of U.S. domestic supply, but BP shut down half of the field in early August after government-ordered pipeline inspections turned up severe corrosion inside a segment of the eastern oil transit line at the field.

Reuters