Alaska Pipeline Article

<<The pipe also bounced up and down enough to knock down cross beams at eight locations. That's intentional to preclude pounding of the pipe and its support shoe against the cross beam.

The quake caused no damage beneath the ground, even though it created liquefaction in some areas. A scan with an inline inspection tool revealed no dents or settling beyond tolerable limits.

Although no oil was spilled, Alyeska shut down the pipeline for 66 hours. Company protocol calls for the company to halt pumping, assess damage and make repairs as determined by an earthquake monitoring software system. In retrospect, the line could have kept operating, Malvick said.

"We wanted to be sure that if we did have a big aftershock, a knockout punch per se that would damage the pipe, we wanted to minimize the likelihood of making the situation worse by having oil flowing in the pipe at the time," Malvick said.>>

<a href="http://www.adn.com/alaska/story/4325512p-4335370c.html">http://www.adn.com/alaska/story/4325512p-4335370c.html</a> Received on Mon Nov 03 18:49:00 2003