"With minimum manning in maintenance and operations we are basically running a broken plant with too few people to address the problems in a timely and safe manner," the employee said. "Operations can not rely on Management to provide them with a safe and reliable plant to work in. The management of our maintenance at [Lisburne Production Center] simply is not working to maintain a safe operation. This gap in maintenance management causes problems that increase the overall risk of plant integrity and personnel safety."
One of the most critical safety issues the employee raised in the Libsurne employee's email that undercuts BP's commitment to "integrity management" has to do with "louvers" that he said fail to seal, an issue that has allegedly persisted for years. Louvers are connected to the production facility's fire and gas suppression systems and are supposed to remain closed to trap a halon discharge in the event of fire or a gas buildup. Halon is a chemical that prevents explosions by depleting oxygen in the air.
Jeanne Pascal, the Environmental Protection Agency's former debarment counsel who worked on issues related to BP for more than a decade, said the louvers have not been working properly for more than a decade.
An employee who works at the facility said, "Simply put, if those louvers don't seal and there is a fire or gas is released, people could die."
In fact, according to a top BP official who works on the North Slope, six Prudhoe Bay employees were told by BP's fire and gas technical authorities that it is likely that, if BP were to test all of the louvers at North Slope facilities, they would fail to seal and the fire and gas suppression systems would be ineffective, which means workers are presently in imminent danger in the event of a gas buildup, explosion or fire.
Moreover, internal BP documents indicated that as of April 11, a week before the explosion on Deepwater Horizon, the louvers were not operating, and will not be dealt with until December 31. It's unclear if the Gulf disaster and the financial resources being poured into the cleanup will further delay the repairs.
The Alaska State Fire Marshal, who would be responsible for inspecting the louvers and other fire and gas-related equipment to ensure it works properly, did not return a call for comment.
Steve Rinehart, a spokesman for BP Alaska, said the issues the employee addressed in the email were immediately dealt with.
"We will not operate facilities unsafely," Rinehart said. "We take this kind of info from employees very seriously. In this case, line leadership started meeting with the employees who raised these issues at Lisburne as soon as they received the list. We have made very good progress. Half the items have been closed out, some of the rest are virtually complete and all are being worked and tracked."
Employees who work at Lisburne, however, said they do not believe the safety issues addressed in the email have been adequately dealt with.
Two BP management officials, who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss internal matters, said budget cuts were largely the reason equipment was not upgraded or repaired, and indicated that much of it has yet to be addressed. BP's Alaska budget for 2010 is $1 billion, compared with $1.1 billion in 2009 and $1.3 billion in 2008.
However, a document BP sent to the House Energy and Commerce Committee before the Gulf disaster said budget cuts have not impacted projects that need to be funded at Prudhoe Bay. The company said the fear by employees that budget cuts would impact "integrity investment" was likely due to "dramatic changes in oil prices and economic uncertainty in late 2008 and continuing into 2009."
"This perception was likely heightened by [BP Alaska's] challenge to its contractors in early 2009 to deliver cost efficiencies," the budget document sent to the House Energy Committee said. "Our commitment to safety as the top priority, continuous risk reduction and bottoms-up planning. Our commitment is to activities that reduce risk - we target efficiency improvements to complete these activities at lower cost."
The document indicates BP deferred or "re-paced" some projects, but the company said it "risk-assessed each of the activities and identified mitigative measures to reduce any risk to safe operations." Deferral of maintenance projects was determined to be the same issue that contributed to the oil spills in 2006, according to a congressional investigation.
Rinehart said BP is "committed to integrity management and safe, reliable operations. Those projects are priority. The BPXA capital spending plans for 2010 are down about from roughly $1 billion in 2009 to about $850 mil in 2010."
"About a third of that is safety and integrity projects," Rinehart said. "Those projects are identified in a 'bottom-up' process that pays close attention to and gives significant role to people in the field. That budget process this year resulted in several projects being added to the work list and some others being rescheduled."
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