Major Alaskan oil field shutting down

[gatorboy]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060807/ap_on_bi_ge/oil_field_shutdown

ANCHORAGE, Alaska - In a sudden blow to the nation's oil supply, half the 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.

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I guess the lite (so far) hurricane season hasn't given them the excuse they needed this year to bump the prices....

[XemaSab]

1. Gas is already 3.49 here and we drill in the county!

:(

[rodeodance]

2. our dependence on oil should be a major political issue. Need to take

our Kerry's plan he had during the campaign

[Erika]

3. We need to spend our tax $ to get away from fossil fuel

Kerry was right on in his plan. Fossil fuel will run out and we don't need to be held captive of those countries containing fossil fuels.

[global1]

4. With All The Money These Oil Companies Are Making Off Us Poor....

suckers - you would think they would have maintenance down pat on their oil transit lines. But then again - once they shut this down for repairs they'll even make more money off of us suckers because supply will go down and the prices will go up. They have no incentive to drill for oil; build new refineries or keep present equipment in top running order.

[slaveplanet]

5. I wonder if they'll divert all those shiploads

being sent off to Asia, back toward domestic use in the interim to help make up the difference?

Why again are the British in control of a major domestic oil supply?
Didn't they get booted out of here once upon a time?

[roguevalley]

6. they're probably doing it to help frank murTAXki get his oil plan

passed. I hate them all.