Decaying pipes risk 20% gains to energy prices

BP Plc’s shutdown of the largest US oil field may be the first of many, as decaying pipelines threaten to add 20% to energy prices in the next decade.

"We’ll look back on this event as the Pearl Harbor Day in energy,’’ said Matthew Simmons, chairman of energy investment bank Simmons & Co International in Houston. The chance that the leaks and corrosion found at Prudhoe Bay by BP, Europe’s second- largest oil company, are an isolated occurrence is "zero,’’ said Simmons, who’s writing a book on aging oil infrastructure.

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