BP Plc. said on Friday that it will keep the western half of its Prudhoe Bay oil field in Alaska online, allowing it to keep about half the field's capacity operational despite pipeline corrosion that caused a shutdown of the other half of the field.
BP plans to raise production from 150,000 barrels per day to an expected 200,000, half the field's previous capacity, by the end of August, the company said in a statement.
BP had already raised output at the field from 120,000 bpd on Thursday, it said in a statement, after US regulators announced the company would be allowed to keep running the western side of the field.
On Sunday BP began shutting down Prudhoe Bay, which normally pumps 400,000 bpd or 8 percent of US supply, after government-ordered internal pipeline inspections revealed severe corrosion on the oil transit line that links the eastern half of the field to the Trans Alaska Pipeline.
The discovery of fresh corrosion at Prudhoe Bay came only five months after another line ruptured on the western side of the field, spilling at least 200,000 gallons of crude in the worst onshore spill on the Alaska North Slope.
Inspections of the remaining pipelines on the western side have not turned up any serious problems and BP officials have said they would like to continue to operate the 185,000 bpd western segment if no problems are turned up in the remaining scans. US regulators have already approved the continued operation of the western side of the field provided BP carries out regular surveys of the pipeline.
Talks between BP and state and federal regulators are expected and the latest pipeline inspection results will be analysed, BP said.
The company has announced plans to replace all 16 miles of oil transit lines at Prudhoe Bay and has completed placing orders for new pipe segments, BP said. BP has also bought over 4.5 million barrels of crude oil on the open market to supply its two refineries on the US West Coast, BP announced.