An engineering degree is not required for contingency plan reviewers but most of the people in the section have long tenures in DEC and since each is assigned to work on a specific field, over the years a bank of institutional history is acquired. Unlike the PSIO, which performs physical inspections when necessary, DEC performs inspections of facilities on a routine basis. Agency staff visit the Slope periodically for periods of three to five days to observe companies doing inspections. They have walked the pipelines with company staff, looking at the physical condition of the pipe. As the new flow-line regulations were implemented Schorr’s groups focused in 2008 and 2009 on reviewing the operators’ maintenance records and prevention programs. In 2010 the reviews included physical inspections on the slope. “Over 300 miles of flow-lines were ‘walked’ over two years,” Schorr said. The new DEC flow line regulations require inspections of all flow lines every five years, and DEC has authority to require records and
reports on maintenance to be submitted. The department is looking now at whether to request these. “We have to consider how best to use our resources. Walking these pipelines was very educational for our staff, but it was also very time consuming. We’re looking at whether there is a better way to do this,” Schorr said. Despite the progress and stepped-up inspections, problems still continue. In late 2009 an out-of-service flow line near the Lisburne Processing Center in Prudhoe Bay froze and ruptured, spilling a mixture of water with minor amounts of crude oil. BP had received a conviction and paid fines for violating federal environmental laws after the 2006 spills. The company was released from its probation last December. BP isn’t alone in having problems with aging infrastructure. ConocoPhillips experienced a failure of a 12-inch gas pipeline in late 2010 in the Kuparuk field. The pipe was replaced but the cause of the failure was corrosion in a section of pipe where it was not detected in a radiographic inspection in 2007.
BP experienced two Prudhoe Bay field incidents in 2011, one a small leak from a flow line in July that occurred after the pipe had been inspected with an instrument “pig” in April. Corrosion is suspected, although the investigation is not complete. Also in July there was a leak from a pipe in a flare pit at Flow Station 2 caused by corrosion in a low section of the pipe. BP is still investigating this. Despite this, state officials are still encouraged over a gradual improvement in maintenance and spill prevention in recent years. “We have seen a downward trend (in field level spills from flow lines) but we still have a small data set, but we want to ensure the data is meaningful, and that it’s not a blip,” said DEC’s Schorr. Myles, of PSIO, is also encouraged. “I’m happy to say that things have been relatively quiet in the last several months with no major incidents for us ❑ to investigate,” she said. Mike Bradner is publisher of the Alaska Legislative Digest.
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www.akbizmag.com • Alaska Business Monthly • February 2012
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