Posted on 03/31/2008 2:10:06 PM PDT by Eva
House Speaker John Harris is threatening to hold hearings on whether owners of the shipping company that hauls North Slope crude oil for BP are skimping on tanker maintenance.
Harris, R-Valdez, recently fired letters to top executives of three firms that jointly own Alaska Tanker Co., the operator of BP's troubled tanker fleet. Harris, said he wrote the letters after ATC's president, Anil Mathur, came to him and said he was having difficulties with the company owners.
Harris wrote that he understood Mathur had been "warned and put on notice by you ... for poor behavior" after funding for tanker work was denied.
Harris goes on to say to Kurz: "Should there be a failure of the ... tankers because Anil has not been given the resources and support necessary to maintain operations integrity, I will recommend to my colleagues that you present yourself in front of the Alaska Legislature."
ATC uses its ships to carry oil from the trans-Alaska pipeline tanker dock in Valdez to refineries on the West Coast.
The BP tankers, however, have been plagued with problems since they were launched into service, including cracked rudders, anchors that have fallen off during rough crossings of the North Pacific, a mooring post snapping off the deck of one ship while docking, and two known cases in which engine power or control was lost.
Harris, in his letters, makes reference to these "mechanical integrity issues."
While BP paid for the tankers, it owns only 25 percent of ATC, the company that runs them. The other owners, at 37.5 percent apiece, are Keystone Shipping and New York-based Overseas Shipholding Group Inc.ouse Speaker John Harris is threatening to hold hearings on whether owners of the shipping company that hauls North Slope crude oil for BP are skimping on tanker maintenance.
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(Excerpt) Read more at fredfelleman.wordpress.com ...
One of the stout metal posts used to secure mooring and tug ropes popped off a tanker, and tests found that dozens more on three of the four ships were defective.
The posts, called mooring bitts, have been replaced, company officials said.
The mooring bitt broke off the tanker Alaskan Navigator in September as a tug pulled it toward the dock in Valdez, according to the U.S. Coast Guard, the ship's operator and a Valdez-based oil-industry watchdog group.
The heavy iron bitt flew off the side of the ship and into the water, said Cmdr. Michael Gardiner, captain of the port for the Coast Guard in Valdez.
(According to other articles, the problems originated from improperly tempered steel on parts MADE IN CHINA)
If any company is likely to go cheap or cut corners, it would be BP.
What is it going to take before we finally get it through our thick skulls that Chinese = junk (or poison)
One has to wonder if BP is using China-made parts in other areas of production, like refineries or pipelines.
The ships were built at NASSCO in San Diego. They do a lot of government work there, too. Is the US Navy buying Chinese made parts?
I doubt the US Navy is using Chi-com parts.
NASSCO shipyard in San Diego, owned by General Dynamics Corp. built these ships. They were gleeful that they could source so many pieces of equipment in China, bypassing US vendors, saving so much. Of course, you always get what you pay for. LMAO.
deep trout
Yeah, you have to wonder what else is going to go wrong with the ships. I guess that NASSCO won’t be building any more oil tankers.
You have to remember, though, that BP would have had their own team of marine architects overseeing the project from start to finish. This was a joint effort between BP and NASSCO.
I think you need to correct the title.
I don’t think so. The ships were built in San Diego, but the parts that broke were all made in China. I can post a whole page of more articles on the subject if you like. NASSCO has built some very good ships in the past, without cutting costs by buying Chinese parts. Devens is just trying to be a little more fair to BP for some reason. Maybe he’d gotten a lot of heat from them, over the past year.
All these incidents will do is ensure the law that ships that travel between US ports use the US ship yards, as protectionist, as it is.
BP has to buy slave labor made parts? Why? It seems like they are making good cash right now.
Are you kidding? BP cuts corners everywhere possible. They built these, supposedly state of the art ships, that have the equivalent of five stories, and they have no elevators.
The article that you posted placed the blame on the American shipyards. This link, http://www.adn.com/oil/story/207808.html , didn’t mention any parts from China. Is that the one you intended to post?
So I still think that you wrote the title wrong. Now if you have another article that places the blame on China, post it and then we can blame China.
Yes, they are trying to blame the US ship yards, but I’ll get you the article that details the problem with the Chinese parts not being made of properly tempered steel.
Here you go, same paper, different date, Anchorage Daily News.
BP ships return to Alaska trade
GONE: Improper metal tempering may have led to loss of ground tackle.
By WESLEY LOY
Anchorage Daily News | wloy@adn.com
Published: January 30th, 2007 04:01 AM
Last Modified: January 30th, 2007 08:27 PM
A fleet of double-hull tankers that carries Alaska North Slope crude oil for BP is back in service following a bout with bum anchors, a BP spokesman said Monday.
The four ships were held for repairs after two of the tankers, the Alaskan Navigator and the Alaskan Frontier, each lost one of their two enormous, bow-mounted anchors last month while hauling oil through the turbulent Gulf of Alaska.
A preliminary investigation found the China-made anchors might not have been properly tempered to strengthen the metal, allowing them to break off, said BP spokesman Daren Beaudo.
Aren’t you going to admit that you were wrong?
Post the link and you’ve done it.
I wonder if they are going to go back to the Chinese company and demand their money back?
No, because you posted the wrong article, not me. I was commenting about an article that didn’t blame the Chinese either.
I didn’t post the wrong article, I just added extra information. I wanted the fact that BP was disciplining the head of the tanker company for losing his temper when they refused to finance the necessary repairs. The fact that the repairs were necessary because of inferior Chinese steel was a side issue.
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