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By Yereth Rosen
ANCHORAGE, Alaska, March 15 (Reuters) – An out-of-control leak of herbal fuel that has persisted for at least 11 days at a ConocoPhillips crate in Alaska has halted oil production at the site, according to state data.
State agencies have little data on the reaction to the leak, the suspected cause or the amount of fuel released since its discovery on March 4.
Crude production at ConocoPhillips’ Alpine unit fell to 36,861 barrels on March 3, the last known, from an index of about 51,000 to 58,000 barrels on a February day, before the leak was detected, according to the Alaska Department of Revenue.
ConocoPhillips said it will mobilize a drill to “proactively address mitigation at the surface fuel release source at Alpine CD1,” according to an online corporate page created in reaction to the leak.
The underground leak was discovered at CD1, Alpine’s oldest drilling and production site. Three days later, ConocoPhillips evacuated about three hundred employees as a precaution, it said on a new online page committed to the incident.
About 400 more people paint on the site, which includes a processing facility and a painters’ camp, as well as production wells. Production of the CD1 well was halted after the leak was discovered, ConocoPhillips said on its website. Alpine is one of the main oil sits on the northern slope of Alaska.
Neither Conoco nor state officials have commented on the extent of the escape, but citizens and observers are involved in the situation. The Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation also said six hundred gallons of seawater were released in CD1. Seawater is injected into some fields on the northern slope to stimulate oil recovery.
No fuel leaks were detected beyond CD1, and no other person was injured, the company said.
ConocoPhillips has what she says would be normal briefings with the network of Nuiqsut, a rebel village of nearly 500 other people about thirteen kilometers from the site.
The fuel leak comes just as the government introduced a new court-ordered environmental effect for Willow’s planned advance through ConocoPhillips west of Alpine. Willow could produce just 160,000 barrels per day, according to ConocoPhillips.
The task stalled in court after a federal ruling in August overturned Trump-era approvals, finding flaws in the administration’s environmental analysis.
The leak is a warning opposing the development, said Suzanne Bostrom, an attorney with Anchorage-based environmental law firm Trustees for Alaska.
“This illustrates precisely the kind of challenge one would expect with Willow,” he said. (Reporting through Yereth Rosen in Anchorage, Alaska; Editing through David Gaffen and Bill Berkrot)