Chuck Hamel Letter to Rep. John Dingell 02-01-2007
Chuck Hamel Letter to Rep. John Dingell 02-27-2007
Chuck Hamel Letter to Rep. John Dingell 03-09-2007
Chuck Hamel Letter to Rep. John Dingell 03-17-2007
Chuck Hamel Letter to Rep. John Dingell - A, 05-14-2007
Chuck Hamel Letter to Rep. John Dingell - B, 05-14-2007
Chuck Hamel Letter to Rep. John Dingell - C, 05-14-2007

BP Testimony

Letter to Rep. John Dingell from Charles Hamel regarding BP's Testimony, September 4, 2006.
Letter to Rep. Joe Barton from Charles Hamel regarding BP's Testimony, September 4, 2006.

The following correspondence between Charles Hamel and Stacey Gerard, Chief Safety Officer from the Office of Pipeline Safety provides details and documentation of the December 4, 2004 Z-Pad 500-barrel spill.   

Gerard Letter 8-29-06
Gerard Letter 8-1-06
Gerard Letter 7-25-06
BP Letter 2-10-05
Attachment A
Attachment B
Attachment C

Prudhoe Operational Integrity Concerns Report, October, 2001

Letter from Charles Hamel to Stacey Gerard, the Chief Safety Officer for the Office of Pipeline Safety, discusses BP’s collusion with Alaska regulators to conceal deficient corrosion control. Pascal Attachment

Letter from Charles Hamel to EPA Suspension and Debarment Division regarding BP’s obligations under the Compliance Agreement.

The original November 2000 Coffman report evaluating BP’s corrosion control program for the Alaska Prudhoe Bay facilities.

BP’s statements regarding the November 2000 Coffman report and its recommendations.

The 2001 Coffman report covering BP’s corrosion control program, with BP’s edits.

A comparison of the 2000 and 2001 Coffman reports by oil industry analyst Glen Plumlee.

Articles of Interest
BP faces new charges in corrosion, KTUU, Alaska, February 5, 2007, by Megan Baldino.
BP Alaska is facing new charges concerning pipeline corrosion and federal investigators say the charges will become part of an ongoing investigation. They come at the same time Alyeska Pipeline Service Co. admits that it has lost part of a cleaning device inside the pipeline and cannot locate it. Richard Woolam, the former head of pipeline maintenance for BP's North Slope operations, refused to answer questions at a congressional hearing last September. … In a letter sent last week to the chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, oil worker advocate Chuck Hamel claims he has "Uncovered evidence that Richard Woolam earned his ‘annual bonus' by personally saving BP significant millions of dollars annually by secretly substituting at times the liquid corrosion chemical inhibitor with ‘water' at the well-head injection points." Hamel, who works for the Project on Government
Oversight, said he's given the evidence to criminal investigators for the grand jury. "It was a very idiot thing to do. He got his nickles and dimes and bonuses because BP saved a fortune and they gave him bonuses for saving money," Hamel said.

Pipeline closed six hours due to leak, KTUU, Alaska, January 9, 2007, by Angela Unruh.
An oil spill in the Brooks Range caused officials to shut down the 800-mile trans-Alaska pipeline today. The 500-gallon spill was discovered at 8:20 a.m., causing a six-hour shutdown of the pipeline. … Chuck Hamel, an oil industry watchdog for the Project on Government Oversight, said no one should be surprised by pipeline leaks. "Alyeska has been concealing from the public, from the governor and from Congress that (Alyeska management) is in a state of chaos over the corrosion problems they're having on the pipeline," Hamel said.

Seattle firm softened warnings about BP’s pipeline monitoring, Seattle Times, August 26, 2006, by Steve Miletich and Hal Bernton.
Warnings by a Seattle-based engineering firm about problems with BP's monitoring of its Alaska oil pipelines were significantly toned down after the company complained that the report was "extremely negative," according to documents now under review by a federal grand jury. The draft report by Coffman Engineers, published in November 2001, raised concerns about the way BP was tracking and reporting Prudhoe Bay pipeline corrosion, which this year resulted in oil spills and forced a partial shutdown of those fields. But the final Coffman document, in its summary, had a strikingly different tone: It praised BP for a "comprehensive program of monitoring and inspections" and "steadily improving" trends in internal pipeline corrosion. Coffman's 2001 draft report, as well as BP's critique, were made public Friday on the Project on Government Oversight Web site by Charles Hamel, a former oil broker who is a watchdog of Alaska's oil industry.

Report Criticizing BP's Controls Is Investigated After Alterations, Wall Street Journal, by Jim Carlton, August 25, 2006.
Federal investigators are probing changes made to a report commissioned by Alaska state officials on BP PLC's operations there. The changes were made after the oil giant complained the report was overly negative. The London company, which runs the massive Prudhoe Bay oil field on behalf of a consortium of oil companies, is under scrutiny by U.S. and state agencies for how it handled corrosion and potential leak issues at pipelines there. Concerns about corrosion led BP to shut down part of the field earlier this month, sparking a surge in oil prices. Separately, BP said late Wednesday that it would further reduce input from the hobbled field because of equipment failure. Copies of the original and final versions of the 2002 report by Coffman Engineers, which was commissioned by and filed with a state agency to evaluate BP's pipeline management, show several instances in which critical commentary is deleted or replaced with positive comments. For example, the original version, reviewed by The Wall Street Journal, said BP's corrosion-monitoring program "makes it difficult to develop a qualitative understanding of the basis for their corrosion strategy." That reference was replaced by this: "BP has demonstrated a clear commitment to corrosion control." That and other changes were made to the document after BP officials submitted a critique of the original version, calling it "biased and unduly negative," according to documents viewed by the Journal. … The documents were obtained by Charles Hamel, a critic of the oil industry's conduct in Alaska, who said he turned the information over to the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Transportation's Office of Pipeline Safety. The two agencies have launched investigations into BP's operations at Prudhoe Bay. Mr. Stears said the EPA, which is conducting a criminal probe, has subpoenaed its BP corrosion reports, including the one in 2002. An EPA spokesman declined comment.

Wall Street Journal Profile on Chuck Hamel. (paid subscription required)
BP's Alaska Woes Are No Surprise For One Gadfly --- Charles Hamel, a Conduit For Issues Raised by Workers, Had Alerted EPA of Problems; Wall Street Journal; by Jim Carlton, August 12, 2006.
Alexandria, Va. – When the giant oil company BP PLC announced a week ago it would shut down its massive Prudhoe Bay oilfield in Alaska because of corrosion problems, the news surprised many. It surprised the energy markets, which sent oil prices up $2 a barrel. It surprised Wall Street, which pushed BP shares down. But it didn't surprise Charles Hamel. Long before the closure of Prudhoe Bay, America's largest oil field, 76-year-old Mr. Hamel had sounded the alarm. As one of the oil industry's pre-eminent gadflies, Mr. Hamel last year provided information on Prudhoe Bay's corrosion problems to the Environmental Protection Agency, prompting a criminal investigation. Mr. Hamel also spurred a Department of Transportation investigation into complaints that some safety valves weren't wo rking at the field last March. One indicator of the impact of the Prudhoe Bay closure: It was enough to knock BP off the pedestal as Europe's largest oil company. That spot is now held by Royal Dutch Shell PLC, after BP's stock-price declines erased a big chunk of BP's market value over the past week or so. "Chuck Hamel has provided important leads to Congress over the years, and he has served as a trusted outlet for many concerned workers," says U.S. Rep. John Dingell, a Michigan Democrat who has long looked at Alaskan oil issues. Operating from a three-bedroom home overlooking the Potomac River in suburban Washington, D.C., the former oil broker is a conduit for worker complaints from 5,000 miles away. In particular, he has focused on safety issues at Prudhoe Bay -- which provides 8% of U.S. crude-oil production -- and the 800-mile Trans-Alaska Pipeline. Mr. Hamel has used his proximity to the Washington power corridor to instigate numerous government investigations into oil workers' complaints. All told, investigations prompted by Mr. Hamel have forced BP and Alyeska Pipeline Service Co., which operates the Alaska pipeline on behalf of BP and other companies, to undergo safety-related improvements estimated at more than $1 billion, government officials say. Mr. Hamel has also gotten Alaskan state agencies, long criticized by oil workers for not scrutinizing the industry enough, to ramp up their oversight. "I kept getting calls from workers telling me about the problems up there," Mr. Hamel says. "They didn't have any other place to go, so I felt responsible for them."