Mount Redoubt Eruption Creates Concern For Oil Terminal - Updated
by Cypresso | March 24, 2009 at 06:22 pm
(This is 1/3 of our daily oil consumption)
Should this oil terminal be breached, there would definitely be havoc upon the environment. Six million gallons of crude oil mixed in with the mud... we can only hope that this does not take place. Why, one would ask, would they put an oil terminal and storage facility in such a region known to such disaster?
Updated at 10:30pm - - 03/24/2009: Oil Terminal Initiates Shutdown Plan:
After Mount Redoubt blew late Sunday evening, precautions began being taken to prepare for the worst at the Drift River Oil Terminal, which potentially lies in the flood path of snow melted by heat from the volcano's eruption.
As soon as the Alaskan Volcano Observatory upgraded the code level of Redoubt from the orange level of "watch" to the red level of "warning," Cook Inlet Pipe Line Co. (CIPL) announced it initiated its shutdown procedures for the facility to, as stated in a press release, "protect the health and safety of its employees and contractors and to safeguard the environment against a possible spill from its crude storage operations at its facility."
Chevron's subsidiary, Union Oil of California, shares ownership of CIPL with Pacific Energy, a Cook Inlet producer. CIPL, operated by Chevron Pipe Line Co., operates the facility, which, according to its Web site, has a crude oil storage capacity in excess of 1 million barrels.
Source: peninsulaclarion.com
Drift River Oil TerminalAn Alaska volcano continued to rumble Tuesday amid new concerns that eruptions and mud flows will damage a nearby oil terminal where about 6 million gallons of crude are stored.
The 10,200-foot Mount Redoubt volcano, about 100 miles southwest of Anchorage, erupted Sunday night. Since then there have been five more explosions; the latest, on Monday night, shot an ash plume into the air that was 40,000 to 50,000 feet high.
The volcano has been relatively quiet since, but that is not expected to continue, said Stephanie Prejean, a research geologist with the U.S. Geological Survey. The last time Redoubt erupted was in 1989, when there were more than 20 explosions as magma pushed to the surface and formed domes that later collapsed and sent ash plumes into the air.
'This is very typical for volcanoes of this type,' Prejean said. 'These domes ooze out of the earth. They are very thick, like toothpaste.'
She said that when this type of volcano is in the dome-building phase, as it is now, things can happen quickly, making it difficult to warn people about any explosions.
Mud flows from the volcano have downed hundreds of trees and filled the Drift River Valley with debris, said USGS research geologist Kristy Wallace. Ash collected near the volcano is fairly coarse, with some pieces measuring 3 inches across, she said. There is evidence that magma has reached the surface.
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