HOUSTON (Reuters) - BP Plc (L:BP) said workers on Alaska's North Slope had brought under control a company-operated well that spewed oil and gas over the weekend.
The leak was discovered on Friday and a team from BP, the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation (ADEC), U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and local government was brought in to coordinate efforts. The team halted the well leaks overnight, BP said in a statement on Monday.
The volume of the leak was not disclosed.
A BP spokesman said details of what caused the loss of control were not available. The oil producer had retained Halliburton Co's (N:HAL) well control specialists to kill the well, the spokesman said.
ADEC earlier said in a statement that well pipe had temporarily "jacked up" or risen vertically about 3 feet to 4 feet, causing a pressure gauge to break off.
BP has dealt with several spills and leaks in Alaska in the past. In 2006, a corroded pipeline released nearly 5,000 barrels of crude oil, the largest oil spill in the North Slope at the time. Another spill occurred in 2009 that saw just over 1,000 barrels leak.
In 2010, a BP-operated drilling rig called Deepwater Horizon exploded, killing 11 people and spilling nearly 5 million barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico, making it the largest oil spill in U.S. federal waters. BP eventually agreed to pay $18.7 billion to settle all federal and state claims related to the spill.