The valve removed from the pipeline during the shutdown two weeks ago is being sent off to a repair vendor to investigate the valve's inability to seal properly. The crew at the site of Remote Gate Valve (RGV) 80, just north of Delta, have opened the old valve and determined that a foreign metal object damaged the gate of the valve, and the top and bottom of the valve seat which seals the gate when the valve is closed. The object that caused the damage has not been determined. The repair vendor will open and analyze the damage to the valve before refurbishing it for placement in Alyeska's inventory. Alyeska expects to have results from the analysis in about one month.

A new gate valve was installed at the same location during the 29 hour maintenance shutdown on September 25 and 26. The new valve works great.

A gate valve operates much like a sliding door. The "gate" remains lifted out of the oil flow until the valve is closed. The gate then drops and settles between two seats, blocking oil flow in either direction. If something blocks the gate from dropping or damages the gate or the seats, the valve will not seal properly.

September Reliability: 95.84%
1998 Reliability: 99.33%

September throughput: 33,485,000 barrels
September average daily throughput: 1,116,000 barrels

1998 throughput: 328,852,000 barrels
1998 average daily throughput: 1,205,000 barrels