Advertisement

U.S. issues corrective action order over oil pipeline spill in California

By Steve Gorman LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Owners of the oil pipeline that ruptured in California this week must take numerous corrective measures, including an in-depth analysis of factors contributing to the spill, before they can restart the line, federal safety officials said on Friday. The corrective action order issued on Thursday by the U.S. Transportation Department's Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Administration is not regarded as a disciplinary enforcement sanction against the company, Texas-based Plains Pipeline LP, officials said. But it requires Plains to perform a detailed and lengthy list of actions before the oil line resumes operations, starting with removal of the failed pipe for metallurgical examination, purging the line of remaining petroleum and independent review of inspection results. It also requires a "root-cause analysis" of the spill, exploring not only the direct cause of the failure, but "every contributing factor" that may have played a part, including any safety compliance issues, said Linda Daugherty, a deputy associate administrator for the agency. While the order does not spell out an overall time frame for completing the required actions, Daugherty said she did "not anticipate a quick restart" of the crippled pipeline. She said corrective action orders are generally issued in response to serious pipeline spills when there is no clear understanding of the cause, as is the case with the Plains failure in California. Up to 2,500 barrels (105,000 gallons) of crude petroleum, according to latest estimates, gushed onto San Refugio State Beach and into the Pacific Ocean about 20 miles (32 km) west of Santa Barbara when the underground pipeline, which runs along a coastal highway, burst on Tuesday. As much as a fifth of the spilled oil was believed to have reached the ocean, leaving slicks that stretched for more than 9 miles (15 km) along the coast. San Refugio and another nearby state beach, El Capitan, have been closed indefinitely while crews work around the clock to clean up the spilled oil from the shoreline and ocean. Environmental activists and local officials said it could turn out to be the largest oil spill in 46 years to hit the ecologically sensitive but energy-rich Santa Barbara shoreline, about 125 miles (200 km) northwest of Los Angeles. Executives for Plains have accepted responsibility for the accident, though they say they have not determined how it happened. They said the rupture was proceeded by a drop in pressure in the pipeline detected by control-room operators before the spill was reported. The 24-inch line typically carries about 1,200 barrels of oil an hour from an Exxon Mobile processing facility west of Santa Barbara to a distribution hub in Bakersfield, hundreds of miles away. (Reporting by Steve Gorman from Los Angeles; Editing by Doina Chiacu)