[Vision2020] fill up your gas tanks now.

[Chris Storhok]

Interesting morning Visionaries,

A little news form Alaska, hope summer has gone well!

 


 


BP shuts down Prudhoe Bay 


By WESLEY LOY and RICHARD RICHTMYER
Anchorage Daily News 

Published: August 7, 2006 
Last Modified: August 7, 2006 at 02:48 AM 

BP began a complete shutdown of the giant Prudhoe Bay oil field Sunday
after a leak onto the tundra raised new and troubling questions about
dangerous corrosion of North Slope pipelines. 

The extraordinary shutdown will reduce the flow of all North Slope oil
by 400,000 barrels a day -- nearly half the Slope's normal output -- and
could rattle oil and gasoline markets. The shutdown also will crimp
state tax and royalty revenue by millions of dollars a day.

Shutting down the field and its roughly 1,000 wells will take days to
complete, and BP executives said the field will stay down until the
company can prove the pipes are safe to operate or until other pipes can
be used or built to bypass bad ones.

Follow the rest of the story at:
http://www.adn.com/money/industries/oil/story/8052561p-7945629c.html 

 

Since a majority of the fuel consumed in the Pacific Northwest is from
Alaska, I expect you might very well be paying a lot more for gasoline
in the near future.  No one knows how long this shut down will last.   

 

My bet is just after the state primaries; our current governor, Frank
Murkowski, is trying to close a natural gas contract with BP, and others
to build a natural gas pipeline from the slope to the Lower 48.  The
proposed contract heavily favors the oil companies and sticks it to
Alaska, the environment, and so forth; naturally the state legislature
has balked at it and will not approve it.  Part of the deal is a tax
structure based on net profits that locks the tax system in place for 50
years.  Ass you might guess the oil companies are doing everything in
their power to re-elect the governor and force the legislature to sign
the contract.  This shut down may be in part a gun to the head of the
state legislature.

 

The counter argument that BP is using today is that they have been
pumping heavy crude for the last 16 months and this crude has greatly
accelerated the corrosion of the pipeline system. 

 

Hope Moscow's gas prices don't get to out of hand.

 

Chris

 

 

 

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