THE oil industry is hushing up the extent to which corrosion is eating into pipelines and hitting production, the head of the Royal Society of Chemistry has told The Times.

Richard Pike, who spent 25 years working for BP before becoming a consultant to a number of global oil and gas companies, said that some of the world’s largest oilfields had cut production or been shut down recently so that corroded pipelines could be fixed before they leaked.

He declined to name the companies involved because of confidentiality agreements signed during his work as a consultant. But he said that major repair projects had been initiated in the Middle East, Russia and India.

Dr Pike estimated that the cumulative effect of these closures could be equivalent to BP’s recent shutdown at Prudhoe Bay in Alaska, which has focused world attention on the issue of corroding oil equipment and its potential to cause an environmental catastrophe.

Dr Pike said: “People are keeping this quiet and just getting on with it because there is an awful risk that the outside world will overreact. They don’t want to broadcast it because the reaction can get out of control.”

This month BP closed half the giant Prudhoe Bay field, which accounts for 8 per cent of United States production, after discovering that pipes feeding the trans-Alaskan pipeline were badly corroded. Repairs are expected to take until the end of the year.

The company confirmed yesterday that oil production would be reduced further by a malfunctioning compessor, which would take several days to fix. Prudhoe, which normally produces 400,000 barrels per day, is now down to 110,000.

BP expects the cost of replacing the pipeline to be about $170 million (£90 million) and Dr Pike said that other companies were also putting aside hundreds of millions of dollars to tackle corrosion problems. He said: “The companies I have seen have had the good management sense to recognise their corrosion problems and they are earmarking hundreds of millions to investigating and rectifying the problem.”

Following the shutdown at Prudhoe BP has been accused of neglecting maintenance and the group is being investigated by the US Environmental Protection Agency and the State of Alaska. BP has denied these allegations and has said that it has properly maintained Prudhoe Bay.

The corrosion problem at Prudhoe was discovered on August 6 when workers stripped off pipe insulation and 200 gallons of oil leaked out. The pipe wall was subsequently discovered to be exceptionally thin.

The problem first came to light in March when a corroded pipe caused 200,000 gallons of crude oil to leak — the largest spill in the North Slope area of Alaska.Corrosion can occur to the outside of a pipeline through normal environmental exposure but it also occurs internally, which is much harder to detect. Internal corrosion can be caused by sulphate-reducing bacteria, which live in water that is used to force the oil out of the ground.

Dr Pike said: “A lot of the big oil assets are being kept going beyond their 25-year lifespan and it is inevitable that we are beginning to see these sorts of problems.”

Kevin Norrish, oil analyst at Barclays Capital, said: “The issue of corrosion is a wider one than just a problem for BP. For a long time costs have been driven down and I’d be surprised if Prudhoe was an isolated incident. In the light of what is happening I expect a lot of companies are now taking a close look at their maintenance records.”

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