State: North Slope pipeline spills up to 275 barrels of natural gas
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU) - A multi-agency clean-up effort is underway after an unknown quantity of natural gas leaked from a North Slope pipeline, according to the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation.
In a DEC press release, Harvest Alaska, the company in charge of the compromised Point Thomson Export Pipeline, reports 11,550 gallons — 275 barrels — is the most amount of fuel the approximately 22-mile pipeline is capable of leaking.
In an updated release on Thursday, DEC said the recovered contaminated snow is being staged in Deadhorse. “Recovered contaminated snow will be melted, and then the natural gas condensate will be separated out and measured to refine the calculation of the amount of product leaked,” DEC wrote.
Harvest Alaska officials learned of the leak on Saturday night after a leak detection alarm went off. On Sunday, a ground and air search for the leak’s exact location led to an aircraft spotting the leak site about 35 miles east of Prudhoe Bay.
“We took immediate action by shutting down the pipeline and promptly notified the relevant federal and state agencies,” Andrew Limmer, Harvest Alaska’s regional vice president, wrote in an emailed statement. “Currently, we are conducting a thorough assessment of the incident, which occurred approximately 35 miles east of Prudhoe Bay, and response personnel have begun cleanup operations.”
Harvest Alaska established an incident management team as the company began the process of cleaning up the spill. The incident management team’s unified command includes the DEC, the U.S. Coast Guard and the North Slope Borough.
On Wednesday, DEC, Coast Guard and North Slope Borough personnel arrived on the scene. According to the updated release on Thursday, there are 24 response personnel on the scene, with 95 additional personnel supporting the response in the Incident Management Team.
There have been no reports of oiled animals. Caribou and birds have been seen about half a mile from the spill area.
“A cultural resources review has been conducted for the impacted area, and the State Historic Preservation Office and NSB have been consulted,” the Thursday update said. “The USCG requested initiation of Endangered Species Act emergency section 7 consultation with the US Fish and Wildlife Service.”
According to DEC, there are multiple frozen tundra ponds in the vicinity of the spill, as well as a frozen stream about 750 feet east of the spill location.
“Once the leak alarm went off, they were able to depressurize the pipe and that is what minimized that environmental impact,” said Kimberley Maher, an on-scene coordinator with DEC’s Division of Spill Prevention and Response. “Right now, we have a lot of different agencies involved in the incident management team that’s been set up looking at potential resources at risk. Luckily, right now, everything is very frozen on the North Slope and so this isn’t impacting any wildlife or waterways at this time that we know of.”
Maher said the leaked gas is called natural gas concentrate, a yellow petroleum product that doesn’t share the viscosity of crude oil.
“The Point Thomson unit is the only producer of natural gas condensate on the North Slope, all of the other operators are producing the thick, black crude oil that you think of when you think of the North Slope,” Maher said.
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