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Operators of a Southern California pipeline that dumped 144,000 gallons of heavy crude into the Pacific Ocean did not shut it down for more than three hours after an alarm alerted them to the possible violation, said said federal regulators.
A corrective action order issued Monday by federal pipeline and hazardous materials regulators to a subsidiary of Amplify Energy Corp. includes a schedule indicating that the subsidiary, Beta Offshore, was alerted to a “low pressure alarm” which indicated “possible failure” at 2:30 am on Saturday.
More than three hours later, the pipeline was closed and, three hours later, Beta Offshore reported the leak to the federal National Response Center, according to schedule.
Amplify did not immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday night.
The spill off the Orange County coast resulted in oiled birds and a shore fishing ban seven miles offshore from Huntington Beach to the San Diego County line.
Governor Gavin Newsom has declared a state of emergency for the county.
The corrective action order stated that the pipeline failure appeared to have occurred five miles offshore at a depth of nearly 100 feet.
Pipeline integrity and compliance consultant Andrew Kendrick of Kendrick Consulting LLC said leak detection systems are generally effective when it comes to major violations.
“They can’t detect small leaks due to the large volumes being transported, so you can have a small leak that goes on until you find it somewhere in a shard because leak detection systems can’t do it all. just not see it – it’s a physics problem, ”He said.
“However, with catastrophic failure, the leak detection systems are very effective and provide very rapid detection,” Kendrick said.
However, even some larger leaks are not always detected immediately, according to industry experts. One reason is that at certain depths, seawater pressure can impact readings.
A US Coast Guard statement on Tuesday did not quite follow the schedule set by federal pipeline and hazardous materials regulators under the US Department of Transportation.
The Coast Guard said the National Response Center reported an oil burst in the water off Orange County on Friday evening. Authorities were only able to investigate at dawn on Saturday, the coast guard said.
The agency called the reports “current” and noted that they did not necessarily indicate pipeline leaks.
The federal corrective action order coincides with investigators’ suspicions of the origins of the violation, that it may have been caused by “an anchor that hung the pipeline.”
“A 4,000-foot section of the 17.7-mile-long pipeline was moved with a maximum lateral movement of about 105 feet and had a 13-inch slot, parallel to the pipe,” the Coast Guard said in its statement. Tuesday.
The San Pedro Bay Aquatic Region is the site of a shipping traffic jam that has large ships lined up, waiting to unload cargo at ports in Los Angeles and Long Beach.
“Anchor strikes are not uncommon and with the current backlog of ships in San Pedro Bay, everything seems to have lined up to be a ship anchor strike,” Kendrick said.
In 1992, an underwater survey of the same pipeline detected a dent in an anchor that did not cause a leak. A structural clamp was used to make a repair, according to documents from the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, or PHMSA, the U.S. federal regulator that oversees oil pipelines.
At the time, the pipeline was owned by different owners.
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