Talk:Prudhoe Bay oil spill

What happened?

This article does not state anything about how it happened. Redmarkviolinist 21:11, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

BP: Learning from oil spill lessons - Johnson, Beaudo explain what they think happened in Prudhoe Bay’s largest spill and what the company is learning from the incident, Petroleum News, seems to have the most useful coverage I've seen so far. It gets pretty specific on the corrosion and location as well as discussion of why the leak wasn't immediately detected. It's from May 14, 2006 so there might be a more recent article that explains even more detail. --Dual Freq (talk) 02:45, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

GC-2 Oil Transit line release - Unified Command Joint Information Center, appears to be a good source for detailed information on the spill. --Dual Freq (talk) 22:52, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Yes what happened: When did the line re-open? The last two sentences weakly imply that the line was never reopened. I have to believe that thins are up and running. Banjoboye (talk) 19:56, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

WP:OR

This looks like somebody pasted in their high school essay and tried to rewrite the references section with superscript. I'll be removing huge chunks of it over the next few days, since it's mostly original research. Cumulus Clouds (talk) 23:24, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Can we please have these figures in METRIC? For instance, I noticed that volume was measured in either US or UK imperial units, or barrels. No one outside of the oil industry can grasp just how big 6400 barrels of spilled oil is. Therefore, when the rest of the world reads this, the magnitude of this spill is lost on them. Please include numbers in LITRES. I also find it odd that area would be written in acres or square metres, but volume isn't also written in litres. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Uberdeathparty (talk • contribs) 10:22, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

Talk from the 2006 Alaskan oil spill talk page

So why isn't this called "The British Petroleum Alaska oil spill" Exxon got a name for theirs.

BP may yet spill more oil in Alaska, which is the reason for the specific naming conventions of Wikipedia. Beam 04:25, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

Also, the famous spill in 1989 in Alaska wasn't named after Exxon (the company), it was named after the Exxon Valdez, which was the name of the tanker that the oil spilled out of. Saffi Anne (talk) 04:13, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

Map

The map doesn't seem to have a reference point, just the entire state of AK. Can that be fixed?Mzmadmike (talk) 13:49, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

Sure it can! Did you make a new map? Beam 04:26, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

Reading it from top to bottom

I just felt the whole article was all over the place. If what I did made it worse (as I didn't change any content, just moved it) please just roll back the whole thing and I'll try again tomorrow. Either way I'll be back. Maybe ;) If I do come back I'd actually make the "Immediate Impact" section make even more sense with a little more detail on what happened, and the immediate effects on the environment etc. Of course, that's just my theory of what the section could be. The previous authors made it something different, I just don't think it read well.. but that could just be the content itself. Beam 04:25, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

Thoughts on improving the article...

DOJ documents for help in article research:

Oct 2012 Oil Spills on the North Slope of Alaska[1]

In October, 2007, British Petroleum Exploration... [2]

March 31, 2009 United States Files Civil Lawsuit Against BP Exploration for Oil Spills on North Slope in Alaska [3]

Oct 2007 Fact Sheet: Prosecution of Environmental Crimes by the Environment and Natural Resources Division [4]

Oct 2007 British Petroleum to Pay More Than $370 Million in Environmental Crimes, Fraud Cases [5]

Some basic facts:

On the North Slope of Alaska, BP Exploration Alaska, Inc. (BPXA) operates several oil fields, including Greater Prudhoe Bay, which is the largest oil field in North America and one of the oldest on the North Slope. In two major oil spills in the spring and summer of 2006 BPXA illegally discharged an estimated 213,242 gallons of crude oil from its pipelines into Prudhoe Bay.

Investigators from the U.S. Department of Transportation’s (DOT) Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) determined that the spills were a result of BPXA’s failure to properly inspect and maintain the pipeline to prevent corrosion. PHMSA issued a Corrective Action Order (CAO) to BPXA that addressed the pipeline’s risks and ordered pipeline repair or replacement. EPA investigated the extent of the oil spills and oversaw BPXA’s cleanup. When BP XA did not fully comply with the terms of the corrective action, EES filed a complaint in March 2009 alleging violations of the Clean Water Act, the Clean Air Act and the Pipeline Safety Act. Gandydancer (talk) 15:02, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

thanks for those documents! I finally got here after working through the north slope and the prudhoe bay oil field articles. I created a new section on the field, and worked on the section on the spill itself. hopefully some of the context I added is helpful to understanding what happened on this "transit line". I really scored with this source http://internationalmapping.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/BP_Alaska.swf which finally showed me just where this leak happened. The transit pipe is only 8 miles long and is super important. Hmmm. I left a REALLY lame couple of sentences at the end of the Oil Field section that I MUST go back and fill in, but I am tired and it is time to get to bed. I want to say, factually and plainly, what the actual inspection timeline and leak detection system was, at the time the spill was identified. Those sentences are just a marker for that - I do not intend to leave them that way! Just don't want to be accused of 'sanitizing' anything. And this is as far as I got. I didn't get into the "immediate impact" section or anything beyond that. Jytdog (talk) 04:39, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

Information and a map to add

Hi, as editors here may know, my name is Arturo and I am a BP employee and the representative of the company on Wikipedia. Some good work has been done on this article recently to improve its coverage of the Prudhoe Bay oil spill and the consequences of this event and I would like to offer some further information to help editors here improve it further. In particular, I have some information to add to clarify details that are currently a little vague and also to include a suit brought by the State of Alaska that is not currently mentioned. Below I will explain the details and provide sources for this.

1. For the "Immediate impact" section: This section mentions a small spill and the shutdown of the Prudhoe Bay field, however it is not clear that only the Eastern portion of the field was closed and there's little detail on the spill that was found. The full details here are as follows:

• The spill was found as a result of the smart-pigging ordered by the Transportation Department: a BP team sent to inspect part of the pipeline found a leak and small spill of 4 to 5 barrels in early August 2006. Source: CNN Money
• BP shut down the Eastern portion of the Prudhoe Bay field while the pipeline was repaired. Sources: CNN Money and USA Today
• From the smaller leak in August 2006, ADEC reported that 23 barrels (3.7 m³) of oil were spilled and 176 barrels (28.0 m³) were contained and recovered. According to its report, the spill was cleaned up and there was no impact upon wildlife. Source: ADEC

2. Either in the "Consequences" section or "Oil spill and Unified Command Final Report", the details of the total length of pipeline replaced and when this was completed are not currently included:

• BP committed to replacing 16 miles / 26 km of its oil transit pipelines. Sources: Petroleum News and Calgary Herald
• The replacement of the pipeline was completed by the end of 2008. Source: BP Prudhoe Bay factsheet

 Done

3. Finally, the article currently does not mention the State of Alaska's claim for damages against BP Exploration, due to the impact of the spill and subsequent shutdown of the field. I am not sure which section this may fit best within, perhaps the "Consequences" section. Here are the details:

• The State of Alaska pursued a claim for damages against BP Exploration, which was resolved through arbitration in November 2012. Source Huffington Post
• BP Exploration was ordered to pay $255 million in damages, $66 million of which was to be paid by BP Plc, the rest by the other owners of the Prudhoe Bay field. Sources: Bloomberg and Alaska Journal of Commerce

Additionally, I have uploaded a map to Wikimedia Commons that shows in more detail BP's operations in Prudhoe Bay. The image can be found here: Prudhoe Bay map I would suggest adding this to the Prudhoe Bay oil field section or perhaps to the top of the article.

 Done

Can editors review the above suggestions and add in such information they feel is appropriate? Thanks. Arturo at BP (talk) 22:46, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

Thanks to Gandydancer for adding the map and making the edits to the "Consequences" section to add information about the upgrading of the pipeline.

The details regarding the small spill in August 2006 and the damages claim brought by the State of Alaska are not yet included in the article. If any editor is interested to add information about these, particularly the damages claim, which is currently not discussed in the article at all, please see suggestions 1. and 3. above. Thanks. Arturo at BP (talk) 20:44, 17 September 2013 (UTC)

Arturo, this is not your article and please stop acting like it is. I am very much aware that the damages claim is not yet added and I am presently working on the Alaska settlement, but it is almost enough to make me irritated enough to quit when I see you come along and thank me as though this article belongs to you and BP and I am part of the office staff fulfilling your requests. I understand that it was not your intention to be irritating and I accept that as a paid editor you have little to no understanding of why a person would take their time to work on Wikipedia articles, but to get a "thank you" from BP is certainly not one of them. Gandydancer (talk) 21:06, 17 September 2013 (UTC)

Gandydancer, certainly it was not my intention to indicate ownership of this article or to irritate you. Instead I just wanted to show my appreciation for your work on this page, particularly reviewing these suggestions and updating the page. Also, although the page has been quiet recently, it may be that another editor might come along and see my original message here, in which case I wanted it to be clear which information was now included in the article so that there is no duplication of effort, understanding that editors here are volunteers and often have limited time. Arturo at BP (talk) 21:33, 17 September 2013 (UTC)

In any case, I added links to the PHMSA Corrective Action Order, then, the following EPA Consent Decree for BP not fully carrying out the CAO. Pipeexaminer (talk)