BP optimistic on Prudhoe Bay
US Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne has got his first look at BP’s pipeline corrosion at Prudhoe Bay as one of the company’s senior executives said a way might be found to return to full oil production before having to replace 16 miles (26 kilometers) of pipes.
David Peattie, a vice president at London-based BP, said the company hopes to begin constructing the new pipeline system early next year and complete it in several months. But he said full production, to 400,000 barrels a day, might resume earlier than that.
The flow of Prudhoe Bay oil has been cut in half, to 200,000 barrels a day, because of the pipe corrosion that surfaced in early August. The western leg of the pipeline system has resumed production by bypassing the damaged pipes.
But Peattie, who accompanied Kempthorne yesterday to the site where corrosion caused an oil spill in early August, said a similar bypass strategy could result in production returning to normal in the eastern leg as well.
