Earthquake strikes southern Alaska

A magnitude 7.0 earthquake struck Alaska early Friday, shutting the state’s most important oil pipeline and curbing operations at Anchorage’s airport.

Roads and buildings have been damaged sending residents scurrying for cover, authorities said.

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The temblor struck 8 miles north of Anchorage. The 800-mile Trans Alaska pipeline that carries crude from the Arctic coast to the marine terminal in Valdez was shut as a precaution, Michelle Egan, spokeswoman for Alyeska, said by phone.

Egan said she wasn’t aware of any damage to the line, which transported 530,000 barrels on Thursday and has the capacity to move 2 million barrels a day. There isn’t yet a timeline on restart, she said.

‘Considerable damage being reported’ at airport

Alaska Air Group Inc. said it temporarily suspended operations at the Anchorage airport following the quake. “We understand there’s considerable damage being reported” at the airport, the company said in a statement.

There was one oil tanker at the Anchorage port, the Pacific Beryl, which was delivering jet fuel from South Korea to ports in Alaska.

Alaska produced 494,000 barrels of oil a day last year, with most of it sent down the Alaska pipeline to Valdez, where it’s shipped out by tanker, usually to U.S. West Coast refineries. No tankers were at the terminal when the quake struck and “everything is fine down there,” Egan said. A few smaller vessels were moved away from the shoreline.

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Alaskan oil production began to rise two years ago after almost three decades of declines from a peak of more than 2 million barrels a day in 1988, according to U.S. Energy Department data. The state was the sixth largest oil producer in the U.S. in September down from third last year. It trailed Colorado, Texas, New Mexico, Oklahoma and North Dakota, states that have experienced a boom in shale fracking in the past decade.

‘Spare no expense’

Shortly after the quake, President Donald Trump tweeted that the U.S. government would “spare no expense.”

The recent uptick in production came amid new investments along the Arctic coast and a push by President Donald Trump to expand drilling in the state. The U.S. administration is moving to expand the territory open for oil exploration in Alaska’s National Petroleum Reserve, a process that could shift drilling rigs closer to herds of caribou and flocks of threatened birds.

No response from oil platforms, refinery

In October, ConocoPhillips received approval to develop its Greater Mooses Tooth 2 project just a week after announcing the first production from the Greater Mooses Tooth 1 development.

Hilcorp Energy Co. operates oil platforms in Cook Inlet, not far from Anchorage, while Marathon Petroleum Corp. has a 63,000 barrel-a-day refinery in nearby Kenai. Neither company immediately responded to requests for comment.

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