Several thousands of barrels worth of oil have spilled at an Alyeska Pipeline pump station near Delta Junction.

While conducting a routine test of fire detection equipment, Pump Station 9 experienced a power failure and was shut down. As a result, a release valve opened allowing crude oil to overflow into a secondary containment area which began at 10:20 a.m. May 25, and stopped at 12:15 p.m that afternoon.

All the oil is believed to be contained in the secondary containment area with the current oil pool sitting at roughly 30 to 50 feet wide, 500 feet long and at an unknown depth but Alyeska Pipeline officials estimate "the potential spill volume to containment is up to several thousand barrels. The containment area has a capacity of 104,500 barrels."

While the pipeline has been temporarily shut down, no injuries have been reported and personnel have been evacuated. State officials are concerned about vapors venting from the oil which could potentially spark a fire.

Already five people from Alyeska and three from the Department of Transportation have been sent to the scene with additional spill response crews and equipment en route.

According to state officials, the spill does not appear to have had any environmental effects and an Incident Management Team has been alerted and activated to handle the situation

Since the entire pipeline has been shut down, Pump Station 1 on the North Slope is storing all of the remaining oil coming out of the ground.

North Slope Producers are currently at 16 percent production. According to Alyeska officials, at that rate, Pump Station 1 has about 48 hours until it is completely full of crude oil.

By that time, Alyeska says it will have reevaluated its response.

For more information on Alyeska, visit Alyeska Pipeline

To contact the Newsroom, call 907-274-1111.

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