Alaska News

BP contains oil overflow at Prudhoe Bay

Reuters reports that BP Exploration Inc. is preparing to vacuum up 4,200 gallons of crude oil that spilled on Monday afternoon. That's about 100 barrels worth.

The Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation reported the incident on Tuesday, saying crude and a small amount of produced water had spilled from a flow station tank at the Prudhoe Bay facility.

Production at the Prudhoe Bay facility was unaffected by the spill. All the overflow oil was caught. Installed as a safety feature, a secondary containment surrounding the tank collected the overflow.

The failure of an instrument that calculates tank volume caused the overflow. BP is cleaning up the trapped overflow with a vacuum truck.

According to BP, there were no injuries or environmental damage.

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