BP's Alaskan oil pipeline shutdown brilliantly profitable

BRITISH PETROLEUM'S "SMART PIG"

Is the Alaska pipeline corroded? You bet it is. Has been for more than a decade. Did British Petroleum shut the pipe last month to turn a quick buck on its negligence, to profit off the disaster it created? Just ask the "smart pig."

Years ago, I had the unhappy job of leading an investigation of British Petroleum's management of the Alaska pipeline system. I was working for the Chugach Alaskan natives who own the shoreline slimed by the 1989 Exxon Valdez tanker grounding.

Even then, courageous government inspectors and pipeline workers were screaming about corrosion all through the pipeline. I say "courageous" because BP, which owns 46% …