A week after the Trans Alaska Pipeline reopened after repairs of
a pipe at an Arctic pumping station, oil is flowing again at
more or less normal rates. It is no coincidence that oil prices
have declined in recent days, given that the pipeline is
responsible for carrying over 10 percent of the nation’s
domestic production. End of story? Hardly. Energy experts and
even executives at Alyeska, the pipeline operator, are warning
that more shutdowns of the aging pipeline network may be in
store in the future. One problem, perhaps the central problem,
is the long-term decline in oil flow down the pipeline as a
result of the virtual collapse of Alaska production over the
last couple of decades. Alaska once produced more than two
million barrels a day as the workhorse of domestic production.
But as the North Slope fields have aged, output has fallen by
roughly two-thirds since the 1980s. That means that the Trans
Alaska Pipeline is running at about one-third capacity. Less
warm crude running through the pipe means a