17 years after Exxon Valdes:
What have we learned?

COMMENT: A BP pipeline recently spilled an estimated 267,000 US gallons of crude oil on Alaska's Prudhoe Bay. Only 63,000 gallons have been recovered so far. It is a frightening incident.

The Queen of the North sunk early Wednesday south of Prince Rupert with an estimated 59,000 gallons (222,000 litres) of diesel fuel and 6,100 gallons (23,000 litres) of lube oil.

17 years ago, on March 24, 1989, the Exxon Valdes spilled at least 10.8 million gallons of crude oil into Prince William Sound. The immediate and long term effects of this disaster are profound.

And profoundly instructive. Even with the best regulation, and the best intentions of industry - which we most certainly do not enjoy - accidents will continue, and this stuff will continue to spill onto the land and into the sea, and always with awful consequence. With increased production in the Arctic - both Canadian and American - we can expect more of the same, because where the oil and gas industry goes, "incidents" surely follow.

This is what we face with the Gateway Pipelines, the Kitimat LNG project, Mackenzie Valley Project, oil sands development and increased tanker activity on BC's coast. Accidents are inevitable.

But I believe we should keep our statements in some perspective. While the BP spill is a "record" in the area, it's only a fraction of the volume of crude released by the Exxon Valdes. The consequences of fuel and lubricant spills from the Queen of the North are going to be horrible - "the worst marine spill disaster to hit the B.C. coast in close to 20 years" says the Vancouver Sun - but they won't come close to those of the Exxon Valdes.

Certain events in history assume a sometimes real, sometimes symbolic importance and magnitude. The Holocaust. Chernobyl. Love Canal. Bhopal. The Exxon Valdes.

On this anniversary of the Exxon Valdes accident, these present day reminders happening around us - BP, Queen of the North - are as if to mark the anniversary, to remind us of how awful it is, and how much worse it could be if we are not vigilant.

Notes from the BP spill

The following article is about an order issued by the US Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration following the BP spill in Prudhoe Bay. There are some points made in it, and in BP's response, that warrant highlighting.

- despite supposed "state of the art" monitoring and management of the BP pipeline, oil had been leaking from the pipe for at least five days prior to its detection by a worker who smelled the oil. "Ineffectiveness of the leak detection system to identify the leak," said the report.

- "BP officials are studying their options...." "We haven't decided on what action, if any, to take." Are regulators everywhere so without authority? Corporations like BP can decide, like royalty, "what pleases the king". Perhaps that's what you get when the same corporations put governments into place.

- "Critics have slammed BP for last running a pig through the ruptured line in 1998." BP knows it is operating an old pipeline (30 years now) in an extremely vulnerable area (the Arctic), transporting corrosive "viscous crude" (next point) -yet it chose to neglect more frequent pigging inspections! Was nothing learned from Bellingham, 1999?

- "The corrosion may be related to the fact the pipeline is increasingly carrying viscous oil, a hard-to-pump heavy crude being tapped as the oil field is drawn down. Separation chemicals used on viscous oil may interfere with corrosion-inhibiting additives that are put in the pipeline." The bituminous oil from the oil sands, will require that both the proposed Gateway Pipeline and Trans Mountain Pipelines deal with additivies ("separation chemicals" and "diluents") in the oil to allow it to flow in a pipeline. So, another issue to watch for with the Gateway project.

With respect to "viscous oil", BP has a self-serving, but also informative, document on the subject. Viscous oil is similar to the bitumen from oil sands, with similar challenges, and of course, similar risks and unknowns - new substance, new complications, very cold environment, new technologies being developed, new tax and regulatory breaks required, and so on. One page is actually entitled, "Technology to the Rescue". Pathetic, in the context of the technology and system failures with the Prudhoe Bay spill, and the fact that they didn't bother using technology in the form of pig inspections, anyway. This picture is from the document.
http://alaska.bp.com/alaska/NewsCenter/PressOffice/docs/Viscous.pdf

BP mulls options following federal spill response order

By Rachel D'oro
ASSOCIATED PRESS
7:02 p.m. March 21, 2006

ANCHORAGE, Alaska – BP Exploration (Alaska) Inc. is reviewing a federal order that calls for sweeping changes in response to the record crude oil spill on Alaska's North Slope, a company spokesman said Tuesday.

Among problems noted in the corrective order from the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration was the “ineffectiveness of the leak detection system to identify the leak” in the Prudhoe Bay transit line.

The five-page document also noted that a post-spill inspection of the 30-year-old pipeline found several flaws, including an area of the 0.375-inch wall worn ultra thin by internal corrosion.

Officials believe crude was leaking for at least five days from a small corrosion hole in the line before the spill was discovered March 2 by a worker who smelled the oil.

Crews are cleaning up the two-acre spill, which is estimated at up to 267,000 gallons. Slowed by bitter cold weather, they have recovered 63,546 gallons – or 1,513 barrels – of crude.

The pipeline safety agency, part of the U.S. Department of Transportation, said BP must review the leak detection system on the affected line as well as two other crude transit pipelines in Prudhoe, 250 miles north of the Arctic Circle.

The company must make necessary modifications within three months.

BP officials are studying their options on how to proceed, according to company spokesman Daren Beaudo.

“We haven't decided on what action, if any, to take,” he said.

The company has until the end of the week to request a hearing on the matter, said James Wiggins, a spokesman for the federal agency.

“It's part of the process available to them,” he said. “We've got good reasons for requiring certain things. The pipeline failed.”

The order also calls for repairs of six anomalies found in the line after the spill was discovered. The worst flaw was a spot where the wall thickness had worn down to 0.04 of an inch.

Among other measures, BP must run maintenance pigs – electronic equipment put through a pipe to check wall conditions – on the three lines. Since the spill, critics have slammed BP for last running a pig through the ruptured line in 1998.

Officials with the Alaska Department of Conservation said the spill will lead to fines against BP and possibly stricter regulations for such transit lines, which have been subject to little government scrutiny in the past.

The federal agency did not address what BP suspects as a significant factor in the rapid corrosion first found last fall inside the thick arctic-grade carbon-steel pipe, which leads eventually to the trans-Alaska oil pipeline.

Beaudo said the corrosion may be related to the fact the pipeline is increasingly carrying viscous oil, a hard-to-pump heavy crude being tapped as the oil field is drawn down. Separation chemicals used on viscous oil may interfere with corrosion-inhibiting additives that are put in the pipeline, Beaudo said.

“What we believed happened to this line is unique,” he said, adding that corrosion inhibitors will now be injected directly into the line once it resumes production.

Under the federal order, BP must submit a corrosion management plan for this line and two other transit lines, which only carry crude and not viscous.

The company already runs an unparalleled job of staying on top of corrosion, said Larry Dietrick, director of spill prevention and response for the state environmental conservation department. This year, BP's corrosion inspection budget for the North Slope is $71 million, up from $50 million spent in 2004.

But any input from the federal pipeline agency is welcome, he said, if it leads to a better system following the largest crude spill ever on the North Slope.

The real issue is to properly identify the cause and properly get a fix on this so it doesn't happen again,” he said.

Associated Press
http://tinyurl.com/jpe9y