Alaska launches probe of BP pipeline management - Yahoo! News

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Reuters) - Alaska Governor Frank Murkowski on Wednesday suggested that BP Plc misled the state with satisfactory maintenance reports and launched an investigation into the oil giant's handling of its pipeline corrosion.
Pipeline corrosion forced BP to halt production at its Prudhoe Bay field and the company is studying whether it needs to shut down the entire 400,000 barrels-per-day field, which accounts for 8 percent of U.S. output.
The Republican governor said Alaska's attorney general is looking into possible enforcement actions, including a demand for lost tax revenues while the field is shut down.
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 is expected to lose $6.4 million a day in tax revenues during the Prudhoe Bay shut down, and Murkowski urged a quick resumption of production.
"BP must get the entire Prudhoe Bay field back up and running as soon as is safely possible," he said.
Alaska House Speaker John Harris said lawmakers plan a series of hearings into pipeline corrosion starting next week.
Those hearings should include information from oil-field whistle-blowers who have warned in the past about corrosion, and possible shortcomings in state oversight, said Harris, a Republican from Valdez.
"If employees are telling you that there are problems and you don't listen to them, maybe there's negligence on BP's part," said Harris. "We could have been a little derelict ourselves, either not funding enough industry inspectors or whatever."
Minority Democrats want a more intense investigation with the power to subpoena BP officials.
"If you don't have subpoena powers, you're just taking the answers that they give you at the table," said state Sen. Hollis French, an Anchorage Democrat.