Bacteria To Blame For Alaskan Pipeline?
Poster: Aron Schatz
Posted on August 9, 2006 at 12:49:43 PM
Bacteria that thrives in oil sludge may be to blame for the pipeline problem. I think it is BP's fault myself due to not maintaining the pipelines throughout their life. With record profits and the consumer being gouged, the least we should expect is a steady flow of oil.
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The affected five kilometre stretch of pipeline carries oil from BP's Prudhoe Bay oilfield in Alaska to the Trans-Alaska Pipeline, which connects all of Alaska's oilfields to seaports. On Sunday, BP announced plans to begin shutting down its 400,000-barrel-a-day Prudhoe operations while it replaces 25 kilometres of suspect piping. BP officials say the best guess so far is that bacteria colonised part of the pipe and corroded the metal. A similar problem probably led to a 750,000-litre oil spill in another part of BP's Alaska pipeline in March 2006.