Shares in BP PLC (BP.LN) fell as much as 2% Monday after the U.K.-listed oil giant and other oil producers were forced to shut down some 600,000 barrels a day of output on Alaska 's North Slope , following a leak that closed the Trans Alaska pipeline.

Investors and analysts said the incident does not appear to be very serious, but could cause problems for oil markets and BP, which has been weakened by the Deepwater Horizon disaster, if the shutdown is prolonged.

Oil prices were up on the shutdown of the 800-mile pipeline network, which is operated at arms length from BP by the Alyeska Pipeline Service Co. BP is the largest shareholder in Alyeska with a 46.93% stake. ConocoPhillips (COP), Exxon Mobil Corp. (XOM), Chevron Corp. (CVX) and Koch Industries are also shareholders.

BP ships around 180,000 barrels a day of oil through the pipeline, less than a third of the total, said a BP spokesman.

Despite the fact that BP doesn't have a direct role in day-to-day operation of the Trans Alaska pipeline, news of the leak and shutdown comes at a bad time for the company, which is still trying to recover from the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig explosion last year that created a massive oil spill and environmental disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.

The fragility of the company's recovery from the disaster was highlighted by BP's new Chief Executive, Bob Dudley, in an email to employees in October.

"Every day we operate safely we earn more trust, but a single problem could jeopardize the recovery," Dudley wrote in an email to staff obtained by Dow Jones Newswires in October.

At 1522 GMT BP shares were down 1.2%, or 6 pence, at 487 pence recovering slightly from earlier in the day when they were down 2.2%, or 11 pence, at 482 pence.

The production loss also pushed prices higher in a market where the balance between supply and demand has looked increasingly tight in recent weeks. At 1420 GMT, the price of a barrel of benchmark crude oil Brent was up $1.87 to $95.20.

A brief shutdown of the pipeline would not have serious consequences for oil supplies. Analysts said there is little likelihood of severe oil shortages on the West Coast. A large volume of crude oil is held in storage at the Valdez terminal in Alaska , and refineries can buy more Middle Eastern, Russian and Latin American grades on the spot market, they said.

If the pipeline is only shut down for a short period "it won't really have any impact at the [BP] group level in terms of profit," said Colin Morton, a fund manager at Rensburg Fund Management, which holds a stake in BP. The oil BP ships through the pipeline is less than 5% the company's total output, he said.

An extended pipeline outage at this time of year would be more serious. Restarting production and pipeline operations after a lengthy outage during freezing temperatures can be more difficult. When temperatures inside a pipeline drop and the oil inside gets cold, it becomes waxy and gelatinous requiring special measures to restart the flow.

The oil leak from the Trans Alaska pipeline isn't a very serious incident from an environmental perspective, but it is attracting lots of attention because of the spotlight on BP following the Deepwater Horizon explosion, said Morton. The incident is an unwelcome reminder of the uncertainty that surrounds BP, he said. "Sentiment toward the stock has improved...[but] we still can't say with any absolute confidence that there isn't any more bad news to come," he said.

Alaska has been a problematic venue for BP in recent years. The company has been on probation for the past three years for its role in a 200,000 barrel oil spill from a corroded pipeline in 2006 that was the worst in the history of the North Slope . The company has suffered a number of other spills and pipeline ruptures in Alaska since then.

Alyeska shut down the pipeline system early Saturday after workers discovered oil leaking into a basement at a pump station on the North Slope . Alyeska then told BP and other producers in the region to reduce their output by 95%.

Total production on the North Slope is around 630,000 barrels a day--about 9% of total domestic U.S. output.

Διαβάστε ακόμα