Large Alaskan oil field shut down

[IDemo]

Corrosion, small pipeline spill blamed

Associated Press
Updated: 10:48 p.m. ET Aug. 6, 2006

ANCHORAGE, Alaska - Half the oil production on Alaska’s North Slope was being shut down Sunday after BP Exploration Alaska, Inc. discovered severe corrosion in a Prudhoe Bay oil transit line.

BP officials said they didn’t know how long the Prudhoe Bay field would be off line. “I don’t even know how long it’s going to take to shut it down,” said Tom Williams, BP’s senior tax and royalty counsel.

Once the field is shut down, in a process expected to take days, BP said oil production will be reduced by 400,000 barrels a day. That’s close to 8 percent of U.S. oil production as of May 2006 or about 2.6 percent of U.S. supply including imports, according to data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

The shutdown comes at an already worrisome time for the oil industry, with supply concerns stemming both from the hurricane season and instability in the Middle East.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14219844/

[TheCowsCameHome]

1. This is great news. Here we go again. $5 per gallon coming soon.

Does it ever end?

[eviltwin2525]

6. It ends when we stand up

and force "them" (i.e., "us") to create reliable, desirable, free-per-ride PUBLIC transportation like every other developed country on earth. It's called electric passenger rail.
And while we're at it, let's get the OTHER thing every other developed country has: universal single-payer healthcare insurance. Medicare for all.

[rockymountaindem]

2. Worrisome?

They must be worried about how to spend those record profits.

[yellerpup]

3. Prudhoe Bay will go back into production

when the price of a barrel of oil reaches oh, say $100.

[IDemo]

4. Not until Thursday, then? n/t

[yellerpup]

10. Just about right!

Unless you are misunderestimating...

[Monkeyman]

7. 200 $ a barrel soon Did Bush Not Say Iraqi oil would ease our prices

[yellerpup]

11. Yes. He meant ease the prices UP.

and up and up and up.

[acmavm]

5. Just another scam to get those gas prices up past the $4 mark.

[CoffeeCat]

8. I agree with you...

I'm not doubting that there is some truth to the "crisis" and that the pipeline will be in nonworking order for a while.

However, something tells me that they are concocting circumstances under which they can justify raising gas prices to $5.

This administration hates the middle class. They're attempting to choke them seven ways to Sunday. This is just one of the ways.

[Kool Kitty]

9. Perhaps if they would spend some of their

enormous profits on basic inspections and routine maintenance this could have been avoided?

[jpak]

12. ChimpCo just announced it will tap the Strategic Petroleum Reserve

to make up the difference.

[htuttle]

13. Well, at least they'll have less gas to use in a war

...then again, they might need it to get home again...

[Dogmudgeon]

14. This is no scam

It's what happens when big corporations have no oversight.

BP has suffered a spill and a shutdown due to its own damn negligence, and it's the progressive (relatively speaking) among the oil companies. A 2.6% loss of total oil output will push the price of gasoline up by about 8-9 cents in the next few days ... unless panic trading takes place on the oil markets. It's possible, since we've been very lucky this year so far with hurricanes in the Gulf, and the companies are probably short on nerve this year.

And it's possible, but not likely, that micro-manipulations are being performed, but my cynicism is in a different place -- it's the bad, stupid, long-term, company-wide decisions that I believe have caused this. When the CEO and the board decide to shake the money tree for one last windfall before the Age Of Scarcity kicks in, this is what happens.

They're also causing our unimpeded death march into the valley of the shadow of Peak Oil. We've been talking this up for five or six years now, and all we've gotten is a big, nasty, nuclear-vs-alternative bickering match, with not nearly enough windmills, nukes, or plans for the future.

We've got a couple of years left. But I think it's going to take some Big Pain before we get it together to do anything.

--p!

[Pooka Fey]

15. We have gotten something

We've been talking this up for five or six years now, and all we've gotten is a big, nasty, nuclear-vs-alternative bickering match, with not nearly enough windmills, nukes, or plans for the future.

Don't go thinking Big Oil and CorpGov have forgotten all about us poor American consumers! We've gotten the Iraq War.

(on edit) We also got 9/11 if you're into 'connecting-the-dots'; a little spoonful of battery acid helped the American people swallow our bitter medicine of endless war for oil.