Oil markets were braced on Monday for the impact of the loss of up to 15 per cent of US crude after a pipeline leak forced BP, the UK-based oil company, to shut down 95 per cent of production from North America’s biggest field...The development, at the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System that carries oil from the Prudhoe Bay field, comes as BP is still grappling with the fallout from the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. A prolonged shutdown would cut into BP’s output and could undermine earnings.
They continue:
The pipeline carried an average of 642,261 barrels per day in December, higher than the monthly average last year of 620,000 barrels...The Marine Terminal at Valdez has 18 storage tanks, with total capacity of more than 9m barrels. But only 14 of those tanks are in operation. On Sunday morning, Alyeska said they still held 35 per cent of their inventory, or about 2.5m barrels of oil. There is no significant storage on site to make up for a prolonged outage..
This will most likely send shakes throughout the US economy as well. One wonders what types have been managing BP.
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