BP's Northstar oil field shut down after gas leak discovered

ANCHORAGE – BP PLC has shut down an offshore oil field in the Arctic Ocean after a small leak in a gas line was detected, a company official said today.

The shutdown of the Northstar oil field has taken about 40,000 barrels of oil offline each day since Friday or Saturday, said BP spokesman Daren Beaudo.

Beaudo said he was not sure when the field would resume operations.

"In order to fix it we had to shut down the facility," Beaudo said. "They're taking the opportunity to take a look at other upgrades that need to be made."

There was no environmental damage and no safety hazard associated with the leak, found in an 8-inch pipe used to handle extraneous gas from the field, Beaudo said.

The pinhole-sized leak was discovered during a routine inspection of Northstar's wells and processing facilities, which sit atop a man-made gravel island six miles off the northern coast of Alaska. The 27-square-mile field is located 39 feet beneath the ocean surface.

The latest shutdown comes several months after a pair of leaks caused BP to temporarily slash oil production at its nearby Prudhoe Bay facilities for several weeks starting in August.

In October 2001, BP began siphoning Northstar crude into the 800-mile Trans-Alaska Pipeline via an undersea pipeline.