Oil firms ‘hushing up’ crisis of corroding pipelines

The oil industry is hushing up the extent to which corrosion is eating into pipelines and hitting production, the head of the Royal Society of Chemistry has told The Times.

Richard Pike, who spent 25 years working for BP before becoming a consultant to a number of global oil and gas companies, said that some of the world’s largest oilfields had cut production or been shut down recently so that corroded pipelines could be fixed before they leaked.
He declined to name the companies involved because of confidentiality agreements signed during his work as a consultant. But he said that major repair projects had been initiated in the Middle East, Russia and India.

Dr Pike estimated that the cumulative effect of these closures could be equivalent to BP’s recent shutdown at Prudhoe Bay in Alaska, which has focused world attention on the issue of corroding oil equipment and its potential to cause an environmental catastrophe.

The Times