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Documents, Employees Reveal BP’s Alaska Oilfield Plagued By Major Safety Issues

Jason Leopold has written an amazing piece on BP and how they handle safety in Alaska.  Here is the article in full, which is cross-posted from Truthout.

By Jason Leopold

Nearly 5,000 miles from the oil-spill catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico, BP and its culture of cost-cutting are contributing to another environmental mess.

According to internal BP documents obtained by Truthout, and after interviewing more than a dozen employees over the past month, the Prudhoe Bay oil field, in a remote corner of North America on Alaska’s north shore, is in danger.

After two serious oil spills and other mishaps, the BP employees fingered a long list of safety issues that have not been adequately addressed, making the Prudhoe Bay oilfield vulnerable to a devastating accident that potentially could rival the havoc in the Gulf.

“The condition of the [Prudhoe Bay] field is a lot worse and in my opinion a lot more dangerous,” said Marc Kovac, who has worked for BP on Alaska’s North Slope for more than three decades. “We still have hundreds of miles of rotting pipe ready to break that needs to be replaced. We are totally unprepared for a large spill.”

Kovac, a mechanic and welder who is the steward of the United Steelworkers union local 4959, said a lot of employees share his feelings, but “don’t want to risk their jobs for speaking out.” Kovac said he was willing to take the risk because BP has been slow to deal with the Prudhoe Bay problems and that “many lives are at stake.”

Some of the employees, speaking anonymously, said BP follows an “operate to failure” attitude.

Kovac said that means BP Alaska avoids spending money on “upkeep” and instead runs the equipment until it breaks down.
Typical of this problems, the employees said, was an oil spill that was discovered on Nov. 29, 2009, when a BP Alaska employee performing a routine check discovered oil pouring out from a two-foot long gash on the bottom of a 25-year-old pipeline at BP’s Lisburne facility.

“The spill was from an 18-inch three-phase common line carrying a mixture of crude oil, produced water, and natural gas,” according to an incident report from the Alaska Department of Environment and Conservation’s (ADEC) Division of Spill and Response.

BP Alaska’s “preliminary estimate for the total volume of oily material released is 45,828 gallons (1,091 barrels),” the report said.

The circumstances behind the spill are now the subject of a criminal and civil investigation by the FBI, the Environmental Protection Agency and Alaska state authorities. BP blamed the rupture on ice plugs that built up inside the pipeline, which caused increased pressure and finally the rupture.

In a January 27 letter to Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), which has not been previously released, BP Alaska President John Minge said the “overpressure rupture” was the result of looping the 18-inch pipeline with a 24-inch one as a way of minimizing “backpressure in the individual pipelines. …

“The two critical factors that led to the overpressure rupture of the pipeline were this looped configuration in combination with inadequate temperature monitoring locations” that were “physically located on the pipelines” inside the production facility “and not outside,” according to a copy of the letter Minge sent to Murkowski in response to her queries about the spill.

The pipeline rupture at Lisburne is another example of BP Alaska failing to learn from its past mistakes. On February 19, 2001, a pipeline ruptured under similar circumstances. Like Lisburne, temperature monitors were placed on the pipeline inside the building, but BP told the State of Alaska and the ADEC that it would rectify the issue in the future by moving the monitors on all of its pipes outside of the facility so it could accurately check the temperature. But the company apparently never fulfilled its promise.

A person who works closely with BP and reviewed Minge’s letter to Murkowski said Minge’s letter “presents the specific facts of the event,” but does not contain the necessary context.

“When he indicates that the temperature sensors were located inside the buildings – obviously this shows a lack of attention to monitoring the pipelines,” said this person, who requested anonymity. “It is not just a mistake in placement of the monitors. The letter shows that they knew the line had a low flow rate and would go to the path of least resistance.

“Therefore, knowing that this field is located well above the Arctic Circle – you don’t need a temperature sensor to know that by early November there will be sub-zero temperatures in place, he continued. “So, a basic risk assessment should have identified this possibility well before you needed a temperature sensor to tell you what the temperature in the line would be.”

A top BP Prudhoe Bay official, who has grown “disillusioned” with the company’s management style over the past year, agreed.

“Someone was clearly not paying attention to the flow,” said the official, who also requested anonymity because he feared retaliation for discussing internal matters. “The temperature dropped and the line froze. This shouldn’t have happened. I equate this with a lack of operating discipline and place the blame squarely on leadership.”

Kovac said what Minge did not disclose to Murkowski is that BP failed to take precautionary measures to “freeze protect” the pipeline when it was last inspected in 2008. He said cold temperatures causes pipelines to expand, making them more fragile.

“BP’s decision to not adhere to standard industry practice and freeze protect the 18 inch line from [Lisburne] resulted in the line freezing, expanding and breaking, spilling product onto the tundra,” said Kovac, who does not work at Lisburne. “It was stretched too many times and broke. There are hundreds of pipelines flowing in this condition. BP chose to save money. They thought [the pipeline] was open to a parallel flowing line and guessing and hoping that line would stay thawed out.”

Rinehart said freeze-protection “would typically be done if a line was to be taken out of service for a period.”

“In this case, the line was in operation, but had a flow obstruction,” he said. “We were working to assess the blockage and determine how to restore the line to operation when the leak happened. Ice had formed inside the line. This may have occurred because low-flow or slow-flow allowed water to accumulate in certain sections of the pipe.

“The line transported a mixture of oil, water and natural gas from well sites to the Lisburne Processing Center. Typically, the liquid in this mixture was about 25 percent oil and 75 percent water.”

“This was an unused line,” Kovac said. BP “tried to avoid the cost of freeze protecting it. They were hoping operators would be able to respond if something happened.”

A person familiar with BP’s Alaska operations said Rinehart’s statement is incorrect and is only half the story.

“The Lisburne line was empty (no oil),” this person said. “All oil has water in it until its processed. The water in the unused line froze (water was the obstruction). The water kept accumulating and expanded (ice) which caused the rupture as I understand it.”

Two weeks after the spill, a “red flag” e-mail sent by BP’s Prudhoe Bay Operations Manager to officials and employees on the oilfield advised employees of the “importance of adhering to established processes that ensure freeze prevention in flow lines, as well as, appropriate responses when freezing occurs.”

Smoking Gun?

But there may have been other factors at play that led to the pipeline rupture at Lisburne, some of which appear to suggest poor management and cutbacks on safety.

Underscoring that point is an email sent to BP officials in Alaska last January from an employee who works at the Lisburne Production Center. The author of the email, whose name was redacted, said Lisburne is “operating in [an] unsafe condition.”

The employee listed more than a dozen pieces of crucial production equipment that he claims were not working or were out of service at Lisburne during the time of the spill, thereby “leaving no back-up to running equipment and equipment out of service which should be on-line as per the system requirements to run the plant.”

“With minimum manning in maintenance and operations we are basically running a broken plant with too few people to address the problems in a timely and safe manner,” the employee said. “Operations can not rely on Management to provide them with a safe and reliable plant to work in. The management of our maintenance at [Lisburne Production Center] simply is not working to maintain a safe operation. This gap in maintenance management causes problems that increase the overall risk of plant integrity and personnel safety.”

One of the most critical safety issues the employee raised in the Libsurne employee’s email that undercuts BP’s commitment to “integrity management” has to do with “louvers” that he said fail to seal, an issue that has allegedly persisted for years. Louvers are connected to the production facility’s fire and gas suppression systems and are supposed to remain closed to trap a halon discharge in the event of fire or a gas buildup. Halon is a chemical that prevents explosions by depleting oxygen in the air.

Jeanne Pascal, the Environmental Protection Agency’s former debarment counsel who worked on issues related to BP for more than a decade, said the louvers have not been working properly for more than a decade.

An employee who works at the facility said, “Simply put, if those louvers don’t seal and there is a fire or gas is released, people could die.”

In fact, according to a top BP official who works on the North Slope, six Prudhoe Bay employees were told by BP’s fire and gas technical authorities that it is likely that, if BP were to test all of the louvers at North Slope facilities, they would fail to seal and the fire and gas suppression systems would be ineffective, which means workers are presently in imminent danger in the event of a gas buildup, explosion or fire.

Moreover, internal BP documents indicated that as of April 11, a week before the explosion on Deepwater Horizon, the louvers were not operating, and will not be dealt with until December 31. It’s unclear if the Gulf disaster and the financial resources being poured into the cleanup will further delay the repairs.

The Alaska State Fire Marshal, who would be responsible for inspecting the louvers and other fire and gas-related equipment to ensure it works properly, did not return a call for comment.

Steve Rinehart, a spokesman for BP Alaska, said the issues the employee addressed in the email were immediately dealt with.

“We will not operate facilities unsafely,” Rinehart said. “We take this kind of info from employees very seriously. In this case, line leadership started meeting with the employees who raised these issues at Lisburne as soon as they received the list. We have made very good progress. Half the items have been closed out, some of the rest are virtually complete and all are being worked and tracked.”

Employees who work at Lisburne, however, said they do not believe the safety issues addressed in the email have been adequately dealt with.

Two BP management officials, who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss internal matters, said budget cuts were largely the reason equipment was not upgraded or repaired, and indicated that much of it has yet to be addressed. BP’s Alaska budget for 2010 is $1 billion, compared with $1.1 billion in 2009 and $1.3 billion in 2008.

However, a document BP sent to the House Energy and Commerce Committee before the Gulf disaster said budget cuts have not impacted projects that need to be funded at Prudhoe Bay. The company said the fear by employees that budget cuts would impact “integrity investment” was likely due to “dramatic changes in oil prices and economic uncertainty in late 2008 and continuing into 2009.”

“This perception was likely heightened by [BP Alaska’s] challenge to its contractors in early 2009 to deliver cost efficiencies,” the budget document sent to the House Energy Committee said. “Our commitment to safety as the top priority, continuous risk reduction and bottoms-up planning. Our commitment is to activities that reduce risk – we target efficiency improvements to complete these activities at lower cost.”

The document indicates BP deferred or “re-paced” some projects, but the company said it “risk-assessed each of the activities and identified mitigative measures to reduce any risk to safe operations.” Deferral of maintenance projects was determined to be the same issue that contributed to the oil spills in 2006, according to a congressional investigation.

Rinehart said BP is “committed to integrity management and safe, reliable operations. Those projects are priority. The BPXA capital spending plans for 2010 are down about from roughly $1 billion in 2009 to about $850 mil in 2010.”

“About a third of that is safety and integrity projects,” Rinehart said. “Those projects are identified in a ‘bottom-up’ process that pays close attention to and gives significant role to people in the field. That budget process this year resulted in several projects being added to the work list and some others being rescheduled.”

“At what point is credibility stretched too far not to realize you cannot reduce the budget as has been done and not have an impact?” one senior BP official asked. Another person who has worked with BP said, given the fact that evidence has surfaced showing that BP cut corners on safety related to the Deepwater Horizon, it’s “absurd” for Rinehart to state that BP Alaska isn’t doing the same thing.

The employee’s email, Truthout has learned, is now in the hands of criminal investigators and BP’s probation officer, Mary Frances Barnes, who are scrutinizing the employee’s claims to determine if it had any bearing on the pipeline rupture last November and whether it would amount to a probation violation for the company. BP pleaded guilty in October 2007 to a criminal misdemeanor violation of the Clean Water Act, resulting from two oil spills on the North Slope in 2006, both of which resulted from severely corroded pipelines that the company failed to upkeep. The company was placed on probation for three years.

Tyler Amon is the special agent-in-charge at the EPA’s Criminal Investigation Division probing the circumstances behind last November’s oil spill. He did not return calls for comment, nor did Barnes or a spokesperson for the FBI. The email has also been sent to Congressman Henry Waxman, the chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. Waxman’s office did not return several calls for comment.

As of June 5, Lisburne was shut down for planned maintenance. It’s unknown if BP intends to address any of the maintenance and operational issues described in the email.

“Hopping”

Kovac and other employees who confirmed his claims also raised red flags about a newly constructed pipeline currently in use, which feeds directly into pump station 1, the beginning of the Trans Alaska Pipeline, that he said was poorly designed. This was a portion of the pipeline that was severely corroded and ruptured in 2006, spilling more than 200,000 gallons of oil across the frozen tundra, which resulted in the largest oil spill on the North Slope.

Eight employees said the two-mile long rebuilt pipeline has experienced “severe hopping up and down on the vertical support members,” due to wind induced vibration, a phenomenon that was discovered when the oilfield was developed more than 30 years ago. But it does not appear that BP learned the lessons of the past when it designed the new pipeline. That “hopping,” Kovac said, has caused stress on the “pipewall” and weld joints on sections connected to the vertical support members.

“The harmonics in [the pipeline] allowed it to bounce up and down,” Kovac said. “BP rectified the problem by placing timbers under the line between the vertical support members [which is not unusual] about two months ago. As far as I know, there isn’t a plan in place to fix the problem.”

Rinehart, the BP Alaska spokesman, acknowledged that “a section of the new transit line has experienced wind-induced vibration.” But he said the company is addressing the matter

“The vibration was not such that it would be expected to damage the line, and was a factor considered in the design,” Rinehart said. “Just the same, we have decided to fit wind-susceptible sections of the line with wind dampeners, scheduled to be done before the end of this year. In the meantime, as a precaution, we put timber ‘cribbing’ underneath wind-susceptible locations, to limit movement. We also checked all the welds in those locations; no damage was found. This has all been communicated to the US Department of Transportation Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, our lead federal pipeline regulator.”

But Kovac and other employees added that there are other pipelines that are corroded that should have been replaced three years ago, but which haven’t been, and a spill detection system still hasn’t been installed. He said the matter is urgent in light of a high-pressure artificial lift natural gas pipeline that ruptured and separated in September 2008, whipped around like a snake, and released natural gas into the atmosphere, all due to external corrosion that BP failed to address for nearly a decade. Had their been an ignition source, employees who were working nearby would have been killed. When the line separated, the force was so powerful, pieces of pipe snapped off, one of which rocketed through the air and was never found.

The corrosion built up as a result of water that accumulated under the insulation that surrounds the line. The insulation was never replaced when it was peeled away following an inspection more than 10 years ago. BP had told state environmental investigators that heavy snowfall in 2003 prevented the company from inspecting the portion of the line that separated. But BP did not re-inspect the line when the snow melted.

According to a February 20, 2009, letter sent to Tony Brock, BP Alaska’s senior vice president and technical director from the Alaska’s Department of Natural Resources, which is investigating the incident, “Had the high pressure gas pipeline failure occurred under slightly different circumstances, the results would have been catastrophic, potentially with the loss of life.”

Recently, the House Energy Committee asked John Minge to provide the panel with the results of an internal investigation into the rupture, which he did in late February. The committee has not released the details of BP’s own probe into the incident.

Overworked

One of the other major issues, according to Kovac and other employees that may also have been a contributing factor in the two most recent oil spills and has been identified in internal company documents as an “imminent safety risk,” is 16-18 hour work shifts, due in large part to a shortage of trained personnel.

BP’s own internal studies have shown that employees who work more than 16 hours during a 24-hour time period can lack the mental capacity to make sound and timely decisions. Yet during 2009, 16-plus hour work shifts were routine at Prudhoe Bay, with employees working beyond 16 hours about 200-400 times per month, 75 percent of which represented 18 hour work shifts, according to internal BP documents.

Another internal BP document, dated September 8, 2009, shows that a BP employee worked 36 consecutive days of 16 and 18 hour shifts in 2009, in violation of several of BP’s own policies.

According to Pascal, the EPA’s former debarment counsel, BP told her 10 years ago that the company intended to come up with a plan to “fix” the 16-18 hour work shifts.

“John Minge himself told me that the issue of overtime had not been corrected or settled,” Pascal said. “This has been a problem since 2000 when employees started complaining to me about it and management intended to fix it. Clearly, it’s still not fixed.”

BP employees who work at Prudhoe Bay are supposed to work 12-hour shifts for two weeks, and then receive two weeks off. Employees who work beyond 12 hours receive overtime pay. Kovac said the overtime issue has been ongoing for several years and, despite complaints dating back more than a decade, BP has only recently addressed the issue because of a fear employees would publicize it.

He said some employees are “happy” to work beyond 12 hours because BP pays very well and workers can earn a healthy salary in overtime alone. But, he said, it’s “not a healthy situation and creates a dangerous environment.”

“It’s not a good idea,” Kovac said. “Working more than 12 hours during a shift affects decision making and response time and can cause disasters. People have to take catnaps while operating large volumes of hydrocarbons under high pressure. We will have accidents as a result of it.”

BP has addressed the issue by hiring technicians, but even that has not solved the problem, as it takes three to four years, Kovac said, for a trainee to be fully prepared to work on the North Slope.

“The number of new technicians sent to the operating facilities since 2006 and the slower-than-expected pace of newly-hired technician training has not kept pace with ‘leavers,’ new work activities requiring substantial facility/field production technician support, and support for external commitments made and BP initiatives,” according to an October 2009 internal BP document discussing overtime concerns and its impact on the safe operations of Prudhoe Bay.

“Additionally, the facility and field-production-authorized complements are insufficient relative to the quantity of absences that occur continuously; thus, the combination of vacancies, not-fully qualified technicians, and absences results in ‘open positions’ for facility staffing that must be filled by 18 hour work shifts.

Currently, as much as 50 percent of the 16-plus hour work shifts result from ‘open positions’ filled to cover vacancies and absences to staff facilities and field production positions to the level we established through [Process Hazard Analysis] for safe operation.”

“Thirty to forty-five percent of the 16-plus hour work shifts are caused by work activities associated with commitments made to deliver against targets established for external commitments or performance contracts,” the BP document says. “Five to 15 percent of 16-plus hour work shifts are caused by work activities directly associated with production. Wellpad operators are being consistently scheduled for 16-plus hour work shifts (primarily 18 hour work shifts) in order to fill ‘open positions.'”

In 2009, there were 652 instances in which wellpad and drillsite operators worked in excess of 16 hours.

“Since wellpad operators are designated professional drivers, the scheduling represents a deliberate non-conformance to BP Group Standard for Driving Safety and [the BP Exploration Alaska] Driving Safety Policy,” said the October 2009 memo sent to BP’s Alaska officials.

“Rather than hire more people who are rested, [BP} would rather work tired workers with too much to do for 18 hours in an environment that handles hazardous and explosive materials,” Pascal said in an interview. “Why hasn’t Congress and the [Occupational Safety and Health Administration] weighed in on this chronic problem that is just another symptom of chronic cost-cutting?”

An OSHA spokesperson did not return calls for comment and an Energy Committee investigator said Waxman is “looking into it.”

The document advised BP’s management in Alaska to immediately intervene in order to reduce the 16-plus hour work shifts, and if that did not happen, an explanation must be given to employees, BP’s corporate officials, Congress and others for why BP Alaska is willing to accept the “current condition of risk for a number of years until accelerated hiring has an eventual impact.”

“Allowing the continuation of the 16-plus hour work shifts would be seen by internal and external stakeholders as putting production ahead of safety,” the document said.

In a letter dated February 3, 2010, prepared for BP Alaska President John Minge, BP’s Ombudsman, former CIA General Counsel and retired judge Stanley Sporkin, said his office has been “engaged in oversight of the overtime and staffing issues that continue to be raised by employees.”

“As a result of these concerns, [BP Alaska] changed its overtime policies to limit the number of hours of overtime that can be worked continuously,” said Sporkin’s letter, which was prepared for Minge in response to recent congressional inquiries about Prudhoe Bay. “In addition, it is taking a more comprehensive approach to hiring and training technicians and operators so that there is more availability of personnel and less need for overtime by the current workforce. These changes will take a while to implement.”

Lingering Safety Issue

Back in 2001, Kovac and several other BP employees and management officials prepared an Operations Integrity Review report identifying safety and maintenance issues the company needed to address to protect the welfare of its workers. One of the items employees identified that was in dire need of upgrading was the fire and gas systems at the North Slope facilities, a project estimated to cost about $1 billion that should have been completed, depending on who you speak to, by 2003 or 2005.

After the massive oil spills in March and August 2006, many of the same employees, along with a top BP Prudhoe Bay official, conducted a re-review of the 2001 report to determine what projects BP still needed to tackle. Nearly a decade later, the fire and gas systems have yet to be fully upgraded, largely due to budget cuts, a fact that Rinehart denies.

According to a document prepared for the House Energy and Commerce Committee earlier this year describing the status of BP’s Fire and Gas Renewal Program, BP admitted that the project “did not proceed as quickly as we had anticipated,” but the company claims the “slower pace did not reflect a change in our level of commitment, but rather was a conscientious adjustment during 2008 that we undertook for technical reasons as we learned more about the scale and complexities of the project.”

BP claims it invested twice as much money in 2009 than it did in 2008 – $49 million – and, as of February, was set to spend another $60 million on the project. But while that may sound like quite a bit of money, it means that, if spending at that pace continues, it will take BP more than a decade to complete the upgrades – twenty years after employees identified it as a major safety issue.
BP denied to Congress that budget cuts have or will play a part in 2010. But that was before the disaster in the Gulf.

“You asked us what impact any proposed ‘budget cuts’ would have on fire and gas upgrade plans, and the answer is simple: we have not reduced our financial commitment for the fire and gas upgrade plan because of ‘budget cuts,'” the document said. “The 2008 re-assessment described above was focused on technical considerations, not financial concerns.” Kovac said the fact that BP performed a “reassessment in 2008 is a self-indictment.”

“They were supposed to do something years ago,” he said. “And seven years pass and you still haven’t finished. When is the issue going to be resolved? It’s a very simple question. How many facilities are obsolete that need fire and prevention system upgrades? This is not that complicated. How many? BP won’t say.”

“First, understand the facilities are safe, and the fire and gas detection/alarm systems are functional,” said Rinehart, the BP Alaska spokesman. “The upgrade is an ongoing, substantial project; more than $90 million invested since 2006. We have not reduced our work plan or commitment to this project as a result of any budget pressures. The work is being carefully staged. Other work has been done at the processing centers, and several more projects are being done this year, while planning continues looking ahead.”

Regarding Rinehart’s statement that BP Alaska has spent $90 million since 2006, a senior BP official said, “it’s not terribly remarkable.”

“Do the math on a per year spend,” he said. “There’s no mention of total potential spend as well as completion year.”

Mischaracterizing the Facts

Since the 2006 oil spills, Congress has stepped up its oversight of BP, mainly in the form of writing letters to company officials, requesting documents about the status of various projects, and inquiring about other matters brought to the attention of lawmakers by employees working at Prudhoe Bay.

In January, Reps. Henry Waxman (D-California), the chairman of the House Energy Committee, and Bart Stupak (D-Michigan), the chairman of the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, did just that when they sent a letter to Minge, BP’s Alaska president, seeking information about how BP was managing its Prudhoe Bay operations, as well as seeking internal reports about the circumstances behind five serious incidents at Prudhoe Bay dating back to September 2008, one of which ended in tragedy.

In addition, the lawmakers sought information from the ombudsman’s office regarding the “number and type of concerns received and the actions the company has taken in response.” The ombudsman’s office was set up in 2006 in the aftermath of the oil spills, and investigates concerns raised by employees about a wide range of issues, such as safety, maintenance, retaliation and harassment.

Minge wrote to Sporkin, the ombudsman, asking him to provide him with a report to turn over to Waxman’s committee. Sporkin drafted a six-page letter, a copy of which was obtained by Truthout. He said that, since 2006, the office has registered 202 employee concerns, more than half of which generated from Alaska.

Sporkin also said his office “had the opportunity to address concerns at two off-shore platforms, including a case that came in on Christmas Eve 2006 regarding potential safety issues in an operation planned for over the holiday.” It’s unknown what was the substance of the incident involving offshore drilling platforms Sporkin was referring to.

The Office of the Ombudsman, according to Sporkin’s letter, places employee concerns into three categories: Level 1 represents “system integrity or safety issues” and is the most serious; issues that could impact safety are classified as level 2, and human resources issues are identified as level 3. The ombudsman’s office is currently conducting 57 investigations. In explaining how successful he felt the ombudsman program has been, Sporkin cited a level 1 safety incident that took place during the summer of 2008, “involving a high pressure gas line that runs across the field, including in close proximity to several North Slope housing camps and critical facilities.”

“The Concerned Individual identified that the line, which was scheduled for ‘smart’ pigging [a device used for cleaning and identifying corrosion], was not going to be pigged in 2008 as a result of deferred work necessary to enable the pigging operation,” Sporkin wrote. “As a result of the Ombudsman’s intervention, and management support, [BP Alaska] undertook substantial compensatory actions through alternative testing to assure that those parts of the line that presented potential a safety risk to people or facilities were evaluated. Indeed, several areas of risk identified and repaired during the operation, and other areas were more closely monitored. The level of effort undertaken throughout the winter season was extraordinary, and the line was successfully pigged in 2009, with additional repairs ongoing. This is an example of the value from our intervention activities.”

There was just one problem with Sporkin’s explanation prepared for Congress: it wasn’t entirely true. Employees said BP management did not immediately deal with the issue involving the natural gas injection line, nor was it originally brought to the attention of Sporkin in 2008 as he indicated in his letter. In fact, the issue surfaced three years earlier when Stuart Sneed, a contract employee with a stellar safety record, brought the matter to the attention of Paul Flaherty, an external investigator who, since 2002, has provided a confidential avenue for BP Alaska employees to raise concerns.

Flaherty also works with Sporkin.

In an interview, Flaherty confirmed employees’ accounts that Sneed brought the corrosion issue to his attention in late 2005. Flaherty said he looked into the matter and found enough evidence to prove the allegations were true, and that a large number of “ultrasonic external corrosion inspections” indicated the integrity of the line was a major concern that needed immediate attention.

Flaherty said he raised the issue with BP’s officials in Alaska, and was given assurances that they would take action to correct the corrosion. Flaherty said he monitored the progress roughly every six months, and became concerned that corrective measures on this line were not being implemented on a timely basis.

In late spring of 2008, Flaherty discovered BP Alaska had made little progress repairing the line. During this time, he started working with Sporkin and shared the issue with the Ombudsman Office, and together they characterized the issue as a level 1, “potential for imminent danger.”

Flaherty said Sporkin’s involvement, with support of Robert Malone, got the attention of BP’s Alaska management. He says that without Sporkin’s support and intervention, serious risks and potential harm to the slope and its workers were possible.

Interestingly, Malone unexpectedly retired from BP in early 2009, which, according to two BP Alaska officials, appeared to be the result of differences he had with Chief Executive Tony Hayward and Chief Operating Officer Doug Suttles. These differences included Malone’s support of the Office of the Ombudsman, set up in 2006 as a clearinghouse for employee concerns, and between others within BP that wanted to close this office.

According to Pascal, BP’s primary goal in negotiations with EPA in February on a settlement related to debarment was to get rid of Sporkin’s office and replace it with a BP employee, so BP could control the outcome and information being divulged to the government. Pascal said she was “adamant” in opposing this. Sporkin’s February 3 letter to Minge said that Lamar McKay, the president and chairman of BP America, has extended the ombudsman’s contract until June 30, 2011.

Sneed, who employees were interviewed by Flaherty during the course of a separate investigation he conducted into safety issues Sneed raised, said he, “was likely to be the most careful technician on the Slope,” and was “considered by his peers to be a very thorough and competent inspector.” Sneed became the subject of retaliation by the company under contract to BP, Acuren, for reporting a number of issues on safety and retaliation both through internal BP-sanctioned safety programs, and to Flaherty.

He was eventually fired in 2007, and waged an unsuccessful and costly legal battle against Acuren. Sneed noted that he felt BP management supported Acuren’s action of retaliation against him through “passive support of Acuren and no intervention on his behalf even though his efforts were exactly as BP indicates it wants people to behave.”

“In my opinion, Stuart was blacklisted and is without a job since 2007 because of his willingness to raise integrity and safety issues,” Flaherty said. “In addition to the pain Sneed has experienced for doing the right thing,” Flaherty expressed “a deep concern that other workers may not raise safety and other issues to management that need attention, because they are well aware of what happened to Stuart Sneed.”

Flaherty said he did not know why Sporkin’s letter contained incorrect information. He said he didn’t see it until after it was sent to Congress, but he advised Sporkin that the facts surrounding the 2008 case in his letter were incorrect. According to an investigator on the Energy Committee, Sporkin never did contact them with corrections.

Kovac and other BP employees said they don’t believe BP has the wherewithal to tackle the issues plaguing Prudhoe Bay.

“This company seems incapable of managing its assets safely,” Kovac said.



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No Responses to “Documents, Employees Reveal BP’s Alaska Oilfield Plagued By Major Safety Issues”
  1. AC says:

    I’d like to see Governor Parnell man-up, and call for a complete inspection of the pipeline right away!

  2. Irishgirl says:

    Great post, Jason..

  3. Zyxomma says:

    I’m sure many of you have received 350.org’s email about the “line in the sand” and are prepared to take action, joining the “hands across the sand” to protest further offshore drilling.

    I want to share with you a lightworker technique for purifying the ocean water (on a spiritual level; for the benefit of ocean dwellers). When you go to the coast, bring with you some wheatgrass (a handful will do; after 9/11 I brought a whole tray), and cast it on the waters with pure, healing intention in your heart. I’ll be bringing along my biosonic tuning forks and vibrating them over the water.

    Keep love in your heart. Health and peace. Tikkun olam shalom.

  4. curiouser says:

    My brain is having difficulty sorting through the details of the article but it’s picking up the disaster-waiting-to-happen situation. I hope Jason Leopold stays on the case. Investigative journalism does still exist and it is beautiful to behold.

    Meanwhile, Sarah Palin’s has been bragging about ‘her’ Petroleum Systems Integrity Office.
    From her interview yesterday with Bill O:

    “I had to set up our Petroleum Systems Integrity Office so that we could be there on the front lines making sure what the oil companies were telling us was legit when they were dealing with their corroded pipes that we found out and other lax maintenance issues. It took us putting that as the highest priority to to protect our resources to protect our environment including not just the physical environment, but the human environment here.”

    It seems that her PSIO is as incompetent as BP.

  5. thatcrowwoman says:

    Good eyes.
    Good ears.
    Good reporting.
    thank you Jason Leopold and Shannyn Moore and AKM,
    and thank goodness for the series of tubes so the whole world is watching…
    All these little lights shine, and it brightens my day, brings me Hope

    From the Wisdom of the Fathers (Pirkei Avot 2:21)
    (Father’s Day this coming Sunday in the US.) {{{{{daddy}}}}}
    …it is not incumbent upon you to finish the task.
    Yet, you are not free to desist from it…

    We’re on it, eh?
    L’Chaim, all. To life.

  6. Wallflower says:

    “Jason Leopold has written an amazing piece on BP and how they handle safety in Alaska.”

    They don’t.

  7. dreamgirl says:

    Goodbye Gulf of Mexico…. BP and The Telegraph (The Telegraph are BP nationalists and BP apologizers who want to blame Obama for their misconduct… arseholes the lot of them) can rest on their money, but not their conscience or morals.

    Mr. President Obama, Please hold BP’s feet to the fire. This issue is not a “pragmatic decision” , it is a “Get madder than hell and DO SOMETHING about BP’s “Fine Us Then” attitude and ineptitude to run a safe company.

    I grew up on the Gulf, and it lives in my heart forever. My heart goes out to all the fisherman and everyone else affected by this monstrosity; Money over lives, human, aquatic, avian, etc…

    When will the “Good Guys” win?

    Is/Are governments so beholden to monied interests and their careers OVER basic human life? This is a travesty on so many levels.

    Mr. President, Grow some Balls!

  8. Martha says:

    We protect our oil, our environment, and our options with sensible oversight and vigorous oil field inspections………….Ethan Berkowitz.

    Think about this when you go to the polls Alaska…he knows better.

  9. fishingmamma says:

    EXTRA, EXTRA, READ ALL ABOUT IT!!!!

    Can we hear the lack of screeching?

  10. Pinwheel says:

    Although this is something many of us have suspected, it makes me nauseous to have this in print. Documentation is always critical when composing an expose like this. Those of us from PWS have known for years that there was no way to protect the Arctic. I was still living in Cordova when Aleyska tried their first Arctic spill response “training”. An unpublished disaster.

    Keep it up LGFH!!! and Leopold.

  11. beth says:

    Over on the “Open Thread – Birds of Homer Continued.”, our own dear BuffaloGal asked: “POTUS address ? Opinion ?”. I made a response over there: https://themudflats.net/2010/06/15/open-thread-birds-of-homer-continued/#comment-199909

    In my response, I cited as the ‘latest’ figure on how much oil was spewing, as 100,000 barrels per day [from a 9 June article — http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article7146713.ece ] ….that’d be 4.2-ish million gallons per day?

    An article from 15 June headlines: “Scientists: Oil leaking up to 2.52M gallons daily”…that’d be 60,000 barrels per day.
    http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100616/ap_on_bi_ge/us_gulf_oil_spill_flow

    And an article just posted –16 June– seems to confirm that 60K-figure with: “BP Well Gushing as Much as 60,000 Barrels Oil a Day, U.S. Says”. http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-06-16/bp-well-gushing-as-much-as-60-000-barrels-oil-a-day-u-s-says.html

    It’s obvious, then, (to me, at least) that folks are ‘working’ with different ‘knowlege’ bases when it comes to BP, the big oil industry, and what that industry does and does not do. And, *THAT*, fellow mudflatters, is why I strongly echo the sentiments stated by others in this thread: *solid* facts and information such as those given us by Jason Leopold HAS to be shared with people all over, so *everyone* is working from the same page. How can we hope to try and set things right again in the Gulf –and in our energy programs and their regulations–, if we don’t even know the facts and details of what the hell got us ‘here’ in the first place? beth.

    —and, no, I can’t even begin to fathom how much 10,000 barrels/420,000 gallons of oil per day, is… let alone many, many times that amount per day, every day, for weeks and weeks and weeks on end. My poor little mind cramps in the attempt at fathoming that. b.

  12. VernD says:

    “The number of new technicians sent to the operating facilities since 2006 and the slower-than-expected pace of newly-hired technician training has not kept pace with ‘leavers,’ new work activities requiring substantial facility/field production technician support, and support for external commitments made and BP initiatives,” according to an October 2009 internal BP document discussing overtime concerns and its impact on the safe operations of Prudhoe Bay.”

    Hmmmmmm…. Is TAWD a ‘Leaver”

  13. seattlefan says:

    Thank you for this amazing look at what is happening (or not) with the aging and failing infrastructure of the system, lack of safety precautions and maintenance and the total disregard for any repercussions on the part of BP and the government. This is extremely frightening and I hope this story hits the fan (so to speak).

    I echo Krubozumbo’s sentiment stated above:
    “The truly pathetic thing to me is that for all of our intelligence and the opportunity that affords, we don’t know and can’t know if it isn’t already too late to ’step back from the brink’.”

    There is not better way to state it.

  14. Krubozumo Nyankoye says:

    I don’t think the claims of systemic rot in the oil industry from top to bottom are necessarily justified, even as with the discussion here on this blog, there will always be arguments over the specific nature of reality. Still, I think it is constructive to be hopeful if not also wary and therefore will give a bit more credit to those companies that actually make some effort to operate responsibly. After all they have to compete against BP and their like while actually hurting their own profits. I know, it is hard to credit, but I think that is more because of the fact that so much of today’s discourse is obviously dishonest. In more pragmatic circumstances, there are always some people who realize you cannot lie to nature. Let’s hope they have positions of responsibility.

    I too feel both anger and sadness over what has happened to the GoM. I have a sense of deep dread over what is yet to happen. But I think we must try to make the best of a bad situation and instead of concentrating our ire and dismay, concentrate our determination to change the status quo. Like it or not, we the people are ultimately responsible to ourselves and each other. So long as we allow politicians to lie with impunity, so long as we participate in processes that are against our own interests, so long as we are passive and take no action, we are then complicit.

    The one thing we can do that cannot be pre-empted or bastardized is talk to each other.

  15. Sourdough Mullet says:

    When I worked in Prudhoe Bay in the mid 90’s, ARCO, which ran the East side of the oilfield, poured huge amounts of money into monitoring and mitigating corrosion in the pipes on their side of the field. BP ran the West side of the field, which had the very same system of pipes, tanks, and transport lines, basically covered their eyes and ears and said “We don’t have those corrosion problems on OUR side of the field”, and they did absolutely minimal corrosion testing, and deferred the preventative maintenance. The ARCO employees knew this was hogwash on BP’s part.
    The fact was that ARCO could not afford the bad publicity that a spill would illicit in Alaska; Prudhoe Bay was their major operating field. To BP, on the other hand, Prudhoe Bay was just another of their many oilfields worldwide. They chose to defer corrosion testing and maintenance because it paid off for them in their cost/benefit analysis. They took their chances with aging, corroding pipelines. We have been seeing the results of this in the past several years, as the West side of the field has had numerous spills, due to corrosion-pitted pipes.

  16. CO almost native says:

    Thanks for this well-researched and written article; I hope CNN, MSNBC or national networks pick this up. CNN just had a clip from today’s Congressional hearings that showed all the big oil companies had the same, almost word-for-word “quick read” safety plan…filled with major errors. oops.

    And it worked so well for BP in the Gulf.

    • Wallflower says:

      I caught the full exchange about this on C-SPAN and it was even more revealing than the sound bite. The CEO of ExxonMobile said, “When these things (ruptures, leaks) happen, we are not well-equipped to deal with them.” He tried to hedge about the copy-and-paste safety plans, saying they were required by MMS and the Coast Guard “and the oil figures came from their methodology;” accidentally implying, to me anyway, that without government pressure they would not have had any plan. He made the “not well-equipped” comments 3 times. He kept trying to shift ground to, “There will be some impact,” in an attempt to minimize what that impact would be, but was not successful.

      • dreamgirl says:

        Federal regulations folks…. Republicans I’m looking at YOU! Regulations and oversight are needed for a reason: Protection and safety.

        Profits and “slap on the wrist fines” over human lives, their livelihood, aquatic and avian lives seems to be the new world order. I expect the President to get this shit under control…. yesterday.

        Our Congress had better back him up . Oil companies are just winging it and they all know it. They have NO control over MotherNature and no plans in cases like this…a manmade oil catastrophe .

        How do these oil executives sleep at night? How do our Congress sleep at night?

        Congress do your jobs! Regulate or get out of office with your paid for life, triple A health care

  17. Elizabeth says:

    I think it is time for the President to order massive inspections of all the oil production facilities in the country starting with BP’s. Then there needs to be massive fines and time-lines for the fix-up. These guys are running massive risks and apparently figure, it is cheaper to say “sorry” than do it right. We have to change that dynamic now.

    • All I Saw says:

      I agree, one big and thorough inspection season. If they aren’t guilty they have nothing to worry about. Funny how that cuts both ways. But I appreciate an earlier point about ethical operators standing apart from this debacle. Now is their opportunity to sell it to the American people, it won’t be easy.

    • benlomond2 says:

      It’s cheaper to pay the fines, then to fix the problem..and usually you can pay the fines many times over and still come out ahead profit wise… Remember when Reagan passed immigration reform, and companies were supposed to be penalized for hiring illegals, and thereby stopping the jobs that were attracting illegals ???? It obviously got watered down,,,, put massive penalites on companies for breaking the rules, hire enough inspectors to do the job RIGHT ( usda inspectors a prime example) and enough lawyers to prosecute the companies in a timely manner,,,,Goverment oversight only works when you have enogh feet on the ground to enforce the laws….the penalities will pay for the increased work force…. geeee.. bet there are some motivated people in the Gulf states that would LOVE a new career inspecting oil compaines right about now…..

    • lilybart says:

      I believe that is what he said last night. Deep water drilling has been halted until inspections are completed.

  18. beth says:

    I’m slowly starting to realize that if it had *not* been BPs well gushing out into the Gulf and *their* garnering all the attention at the moment, it would’ve been some other big oil company’s rig that failed miserably. I don’t know as how I like the fact that I even had that realization as an ‘option’ for me to come to…

    To be sure, BP has has the vast majority of fines levied against it for bad, super bad, and egregiously bad practices in the recent past, but I’ve no doubt that *all* the companies are doing many of the exact same things BP has done — the exact same things that are incredibly
    profitable to the company and its shareholders, but also have tremendous potential for endangering workers’ life and limb and for royally fouling the environment. It’s just that BP was the first company to get ‘caught’ with its pants waaaaay down around its ankles, so to speak.

    I’m not sure, but I think I’ve been hearing a sustained sigh of relief from Exxon, Mobile, Citgo, and all the rest, that it wasn’t *their* well(s) that blew and now has the nation up in arms over *their* negligent practices, cost- and time-saving short-cuts, and disregard for worker and environmental safety…things *they*, TOO, do all the time.

    I hope, hope, HOPE, the nay-sayers to stringent, uncompromising regulations will *finally* understand the importance of having unhampered, *citizen*-serving, non-partisan governmental oversight of industries that have the potential to really, really, REALLY screw the American people. I hope the BP lesson is one that all the big industries take to heart and that they’ll clean up their act(s) so the American people don’t have to scramble, ever again, to clean up after them. beth.

    • beth says:

      Ummm – Mobile would be in Alabama; Mobil, on the other hand, might be found on a corner in just about any town. Sorry ’bout that. b.

    • jojobo1 says:

      I also hope that the rest of the oil companies small and large are checked for safety violations,3 years probation for letting a pipeline rot????What good did that do.Lets all hope that not only the gulf spill but what is happening in Alaska shows people what is going on.I know Alaska uses the oil profits to run it;s state but still//Someone wasn’t watching and making sure things were done right.Where was the Alaskan Governors when this all happened.Isn’t the oil line a state project.Shouldn’t the state have been aware of this.Mr Palin worked on the slope for 15 years and he never saw these violations and how dangerous they were.That is kind of hard to believe and unlike other employees he could have said something.

    • NanookYK says:

      “Foreign flagging of offshore rigs skirts U.S. safety rules”

      “The Marshall Islands, not the U.S., had the main responsibility for safety inspections on the Deepwater Horizon.”

      http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-oil-inspection-20100615,0,7349376.story

      It makes me sad to have to say this, however I believe the US Government allowed BP to screw over the American people by allowing the outrageous loopholes according to the above LA Times story.

      I don’t know how many tears I’ve shed since the sinking and spill, to watch a wonderful and beautiful part of the States destroyed. Not to mention how it’s destroying the people down there. We’ve been going down there every March for the past twenty years and I think next year we won’t be able to go. It’s just beyond belief what’s been allowed to happen.

      I hope Alaskans get really PO’d with this story about BP Alaska, or they could be facing something similar like what’s happening in the Gulf.

  19. jimzmum says:

    I just finished reading this but need some time to think out my response. Thank you for this. So long in the making.

  20. All I Saw says:

    These employees have been hanging on to this information for awhile. Bravo to them for having the guts to expose the truth, I’m just sad that they felt they couldn’t until now – my Alaska doesn’t let the powerful intimidate the productive.

  21. AKMuckraker says:

    Please share a link to this article on your Facebook page, or Tweet it. Jason Leopold did great work and it needs to be seen by as many pairs of eyeballs as possbile. Thanks!

  22. Marnie says:

    We have progressed very quickly from Drill Baby, to Spill Baby to Kill Baby.

    Kill animals, there may be massive human injury to the people of the Gulf from contact with the oil but primarily from the absorption of the more volitale fractions of the oil, to killed lively hoods, and killed industries.

    And this ain’t gonna help our economic recoverny one damn bit, either. Major league job killer now in the Gulf and probably later in the US and probably world wilde as BP’s credit and stock prices fall they will take world economy down with them.

    Thanks Duhbya, is this what you thought God was telling you to do? Did you ever bother to question the Jesus you claim is your lord told us that Satan can come in many disguises and maybe you should fact check those DT voices your hear?

    Want to know who I pick as the Anti- Christ? Not the one in Revelations, the one who acted opposite to the teachings of the Gospel.

  23. Krubozumo Nyankoye says:

    For some strange reason I am not at all surprised though I do feel great concern.

    Didn’t someone in the past cite the safety of the oil industry in Alaska as an example of how developing the state’s natural resources should go ahead apace?

    Life out of balance…

    The truly pathetic thing to me is that for all of our intelligence and the opportunity that affords, we don’t know and can’t know if it isn’t already too late to ‘step back from the brink’.

    • Marnie says:

      Sarah wants to teach Obama how to protect the environment and regulate the oil industry.

      Sarah can’t regulate her own mouth.

      And she still hasen’t figured out that what she says is going to be double checked against what she has done.

      She doesn’t think ahead, she doesn’t reflect.

      I had a friend years ago, a very outspoken friend, Hi Devork from WF if your out there. Who said of a woman her her church that her mouth wasn’t connected to her brain.
      That’s Sarah.
      Unfortunately neither are her overies or her maternal instincts, the human maternial instincts.

  24. HistoryGoddess says:

    This is an incredible piece of true journalism. Thank you. This information needs to be out there.

  25. benlomond2 says:

    Hope the MSM pick up on this one….all too familar story of Big Coporate Profit overides worker safety….see Coal Mining industry for same stories…