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When workers at the company operating the Elly drilling rig saw oil in the water miles off the California coast, they did not immediately call authorities. Instead, they called the business risk management company.
At 8:55 a.m. on Saturday, an emergency response worker from crisis company Witt O’Brien’s informed federal authorities that a leaking pipeline had sent crude oil spilling into the water off County D ‘Orange, fueling the U.S. Coast Guard’s investigation into a large spill that residents miles inland said they could smell.
It was 3 hours after the first reports of oil in the water, at 6 p.m. Friday, started pouring in. This gap between Friday night and Saturday morning remains one of the least understood and potentially vital parts of the oil spill, filled with unanswered questions. and contradictions.
Why wasn’t the platform’s first call to federal regulators? Did a pipeline alarm go off in the early hours of Saturday morning? And when exactly did the oil company, a subsidiary of Amplify Energy Corp., stop pumping crude oil?
Determining what happened during that 15-hour period could help determine if more could have been done to limit the extent of the spill and the damage it caused.
Amplify Energy chief executive Martyn Willsher has been evasive about these crucial hours, offering information that conflicts with state and federal government records and providing vague answers to questions at the conferences. press before withdrawing from a media appearance Thursday.
He insisted, however, that his employees did not see oil on the water until 8:09 a.m. on Saturday, shortly before the call to the crisis firm.
“If we knew of anything on Friday night, I promise you we would have stopped all operations immediately,” said Willsher.
Any delay in notifying authorities could violate federal law, which requires anyone responsible for an offshore installation to notify the National Response Center “as soon as they become aware of any oil spill.”
Amplify officials did not return requests for comment.
The Coast Guard said on Friday that the anchor strike that cracked the pipeline’s concrete casing and dragged it across the ocean floor happened at least several months ago, and possibly as long as a year. Captain Jason Neubauer said underwater footage of the ruptured pipeline showed marine life developed on the pipe, which could not have happened if the metal had only been exposed to water. last week.
The pipe may have suffered a slight crack that worsened over time, or may have survived intact on the first hit but suffered damage in another incident, Neubauer said.
This raises further questions for Amplify about what indicators, if any, the company may have been having trouble with along the line over the past few months and how workers haven’t noticed that 4,000 feet of pipe – about three-quarters of a mile – had been moved.
A ship passing along the coast was the first to report an oil burst to the NRC on Friday at 6:13 p.m., according to a report from the State Emergency Services Office. Shortly after that, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration spotted a black spot on its satellite images, calling it regulators with “great confidence” that it was oil.
But for Amplify, the first sign of a problem seems to have happened at 2:30 a.m. on Saturday when control room workers received a low pressure alarm on the 15 mile run that carries crude oil to the landing. according to a letter from the Pipeline. and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, which oversees pipelines. The pipeline was operating at around 30% of its maximum pressure, the agency said.
The October 4 letter, which ordered Amplify not to restart the San Pedro Bay pipeline until it is found to be safe, says the alarm indicated “a possible failure” and that the company The operation closed the pipeline more than three hours later, at 6 a.m. to 1 a.m. The 2:30 a.m. alert also appears as an incident hour on federal and state reports of Witt O’Brien’s appeal.
Pipeline expert Richard Kuprewicz said pressure alarms go off frequently in such pipes and an alert would not necessarily suggest a leak. “Most do not indicate an oil leak,” he said. “There are hundreds, if not thousands of tonnes of oil in a pipe, and it creates a lot of noise in the system.”
Willsher has repeatedly said his business will be “fully transparent with investigating authorities” but has been less open with the public.
When asked at a press conference this week why the Coast Guard reported the time of discovery of the incident at 2:30 a.m., Willsher said “there was not 2:30 a.m. time”.
He later described the PHMSA report on the 2:30 am alarm as “initial” and said the company was “unaware of the presence of oil in the water at 2:30 am. “. He did not specify.
On Wednesday, Willsher said workers turned on the pipeline pump from 6:00 am to 6:05 am Saturday to take a “meter reading” and no oil was pumped after that.
He did not say how long the pipeline was closed before the “meter reading” and why it had not been functioning, although he did say that the pipeline operations are “not functioning properly.” consistently 24 hours a day, so sometimes you run it at different times depending on the power needs and things like that.
When he insisted on the point, his answers provided little clarity.
“When you turned it off, what was the reason you turned it off at 6:05 am?” Asked a reporter.
“We turned it on to run the meter to calculate the oil volumes,” Willsher said.
“Why did you turn it off? Was the continuation.
“Because it was turned on to do the counter,” Willsher said.
The October 4 letter from federal investigators did not mention that the pipeline had been put into operation shortly before it closed.
Willsher did not say what happened on the platform between the pipeline shutdown and workers seeing oil in the water at 8:09 am. their incident response plan.
The pump was not running at 8:09 am, Willsher said, but the platforms and everything in between were “shut down immediately after.” He said the shutdown was done manually. The call to Witt O’Brien was made around 8:30 a.m., he said.
Rebecca Craven, program director for Pipeline Safety Trust, said Amplify had not publicly explained how it responded to signs of a possible pipeline failure.
“An operator would undoubtedly make the argument that he had to confirm the rejection before being forced to report, but that wouldn’t take into account the time between stop and report, and wouldn’t even take into account. counts a lot of the time between the pressure alarm and closing, ”she said.
John Pardue, an engineering professor at Louisiana State University with expertise in oil spills, said it was not uncommon for companies to rely on crisis management companies hired to act as first responders in the event of a spill. Having such a business on-call is often a regulatory requirement, and businesses can play a crucial role in mobilizing the specialized equipment needed for containment and clean-up.
“They are going to have their own subcontractors and their own staff who will be responsible for executing their own spill plan,” Pardue said. Yet authorities are expected to be notified “simultaneously”, he added.
But, he said, “that rarely happens.”
Times editors Thomas Curwen and Richard Winton contributed to this report.
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