BP Will Keep Pumping Oil From Prudhoe Bay's West Side

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BP Plc will keep pumping crude from the western half of Alaska's Prudhoe Bay, the largest U.S. oil field, while it replaces corroded pipe on the eastern half.

The world's third-biggest oil company by market value will produce 200,000 barrels a day, about half the field's usual output of 400,000 barrels a day, spokesman Tom Mueller said in a telephone interview yesterday from Anchorage. The field is producing 150,000 barrels a day now, he said, and will pump more as the company completes maintenance on the collection network.