NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams is asking, “Was the BP pipeline problem preventable?” It seems that BP has allegedly been giving required maintenance to the pipeline short shrift: “Allegations about BP’s maintenance practices have been so persistent that a criminal investigation now is under way into whether BP has for years deliberately shortchanged maintenance and falsified records to cover it up.”

BP shut down the Prudhoe Bay oil field earlier this week, after a “spill” resulting from “unexpected corrosion.” While BP shuts down the field to repair 16 miles of pipeline, there are concerns that about 400,000 barrels per day will be taken out of production, and will deprive West Coast refineries of a quarter of their supply. BP has pledged in Alaska to “make sure North Pole Refinery does not run short of crude oil.”

Since the year 2000, British Petroleum (BP) has attempted to rebrand itself as an innovator in the pursuit of alternative energies, using the tagline, “Beyond Petroleum” (here’s a link to BP’s Alaska Corrosion Response page). I think it’s safe to say that most of us assumed that when BP was going “beyond petroleum,” that didn’t include dereliction of required basic maintenance for the current petroleum infrastructure.

Christopher Westley, writing at Mises.org, says that “BP doesn’t seem like the best run pany in recent years. This pipeline shutdown is just the latest of several missteps for this firm. It is still recovering from the largest oil spill in history in the North Slope earlier this year, as well as from a devastating refinery explosion in Texas City, Texas, last year that killed 15 employees. Many are saying the BP must actually stand for ‘Big Problem.'”

This WaPo article gives a more extended look at BP’s PR nightmare.

Update: An op-ed in the NYT by one of the ad folks behing the “beyond petroleum” tagline notes: “Think of it. Going beyond petroleum. The best and brightest, at pany that can provide practically unlimited resources, trying to find newer, smarter, cleaner ways of powering the world. Only they didn’t go beyond petroleum. They are petroleum.”