Lawmaker questions Alaska pipeline opening

WASHINGTON, Jan. 13 (UPI) -- The operator of the Trans-Alaska oil pipeline is called on to reveal how much oil might leak from the pipeline while it works on a bypass, a lawmaker said.

Alyeska Pipeline Service Co. shut down the major crude oil artery last weekend after workers found oil collected in the basement of a pump station. The company said it received regulatory approval to restart the pipeline on a temporary basis while workers build a bypass at the pump station where the leak occurred.

U.S. Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass., the ranking member of the Natural Resources Committee, asked Alyeska in a letter how much crude oil could spill from the broken Trans-Alaska pipeline.

"Among the many tragic lessons learned from the BP disaster in the Gulf (of Mexico) is that the public's right to transparent and complete information regarding the causes and consequences of a failure of this type is paramount," he said.

He added that the latest problems with the 800-mile pipeline are "reminiscent" of the events that led to a March 2006 leak from the pipeline that released more than 6,000 barrels of oil into Alaska's Prudhoe Bay.

The Trans-Alaska pipeline carries about 630,000 barrels of crude oil per day typically. The shutdown idled more than 10 percent of the U.S. crude output when Alyeska asked British energy company BP to cut oil supplies to the pipeline.