Wednesday, August 09, 2006

More on Pipeline Shutdown

The governor of Alaska has announced that the state will be investigating the leak in BP's pipeline that caused it to be shut down. State officials want to know whether BP misled them about the condition of the pipeline.

After "numerous" satisfactory maintenance reports to the state in the past that oil-field pipeline corrosion was being adequately controlled, BP abruptly decided to shut down all of Prudhoe Bay without consulting the state, Murkowski said.

"We will hold British Petroleum accountable for past and future field management decisions," Murkowski told a joint session of the legislature in Juneau.

"One has to ask themselves, what did BP learn last Saturday or Sunday or whatever that it did not know previously that would cause BP to take such a precipitous action?"

Alaska may demand compensation for lost tax revenues if it finds evidence of wrongdoing.