There are technical challenges with viscous oil and these facilities were created to handle light oil. It's not necessarily the characteristics of the crude oil, it's water. Water is the source of corrosion. You've got to have water in the line to have corrosion.
Knowing the impact area and getting it cleaned up, to us, is in a sense the most important thing.
Our participation in the state lease sale is aligned with our current interest in progressing Liberty along.
We need a healthy oil business in order to move to a healthy gas business. We view oil and gas as one package and the agreement reached with the governor is finely balanced.
We'll be out there as long as it takes to clean it up as thoroughly as we can.
When a statute is presented I'll have something to talk about.
We're looking at $13 billion in capital investment over the next decade.
We're looking at a 50-year future here. We'll take what we learned about the potential impacts of viscous oil and share it across the field.
But, of course, we're concerned about any spill scenario.
We expect that the majority of the material recovered is going to be oil.
We're disappointed in the ruling, and we're looking at our options.
Right now we don't know how big of a spill we have.
It's taken us awhile to get closer and closer to the actual scene to try to evaluate exactly where the leak is.
They are not necessarily as sensitive to very small leaks at any one time.
If you look at the fact that we've delivered 15 billion barrels of oil down that line since it opened, if you compare any amount of oil spilled, it's a tiny fraction.
Changing the rules and dramatically increasing taxes on prior investments and future investments sends a chilling message to any company considering investments in Alaska.
The current status is we don't know what caused the spill right now. We don't know the size of the spill right now.