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Prudhoe Bay ( (CDP) located in North Slope Borough in the U.S. State of Alaska . As of the 2000 Census , the Population of the CDP was 5. According to the United States Census Bureau , it is one of only eight places in the United States with a population of five people. The others are Storrie, California ; Bear Head Lake, Minnesota ; Baker, Missouri ; Gross, Nebraska ; Odell, New Hampshire ; Maza, North Dakota ; and Somerset, Vermont . Despite the low census figures, Prudhoe Bay is actually quite a busy place; at any moment, there are several thousand temporary workers running the Prudhoe Bay Oil Field or supporting it in some way. The airport, lodging, and General Store are clustered in a location called Deadhorse , while the rigs and processing facilities are located on scattered gravel "pads" laid on top of the Tundra . Winter is just as busy as summer, since only at that time is the surface hard enough to support heavy equipment, and so all new construction happens then. A small number of Tourist s, many arriving by bus after a two-day ride up the Dalton Highway from Fairbanks , come to see the tundra, the Arctic Ocean , and the Midnight Sun , staying in extremely basic lodgings assembled from "modular" buildings. Prudhoe Bay was named in 1826 by British explorer Sir John Franklin after his classmate Captain Algernon Percy, Baron Prudhoe . GEOGRAPHY Prudhoe Bay is located at 70°19'32" North, 148°42'41" West (70.325490, -148.711387). According to the United States Census Bureau , the CDP has a total area of 1,445.3 Km&2 (558.0 Mi&2 ). 1,078.1 km&2 (416.3 mi&2) of it is land and 367.2 km&2 (141.8 mi&2) of it is Water . The total area is 25.40% water. DEMOGRAPHICS As of the Census of 2000 , there was one household in the town, consisting of one married couple between 25 and 44 and two boys and one girl under 18; the median age of the family was 12 years. One person was White , one was Native American , and three were biracial. The income for this household was $90,957, or $19,880 per capita. The Population Density is 0.0/km&2. There was 1 housing unit. PRUDHOE BAY OIL FIELD Purdhoe Bay oil field is operated by British Petroleum; partners are Exxon-Mobil and Conoco Phillips. Commercial oil exploration started in Prudhoe Bay in the 1960s and the field was discovered in 1968 by , the second largest. March 2006 oil spill On March 2 , 2006 , a worker for BP Exploration (Alaska) discovered a large oil spill in western Prudhoe Bay. At least 6,350 barrels spilled, making it the largest oil spill on Alaska's north slope to date.2 August 2006 shutdown The March 2006 oil spill led the United States Department Of Transportation to mandate that the transit lines be inspected for corrosion. As a result, BP announced on 6 August 2006 they had discovered severe corrosion, with losses of 70 to 81 percent in the 3/8-inch of the wall thickness of the pipe. Oil leaking was reported in one area, with the equivalent of four to five barrels of oil spilled.3 The damage required replacement of 16 of 22 miles of pipeline at the Prudhoe Bay. BP said it was surprised to find such severe corrosion and that it had been 14 years since they had used a Pipeline Inspection Gauge ("pig") to clean out its lines because the company believed the use of the pigging equipment might damage pipe integrity.4 BP Exploration announced that they were shutting down the oil field indefinitely, due to the severe corrosion and a minor leak in the oil transit lines.56 This led to an 8% reduction in the amount of oil produced by the United States Of America , as Prudhoe Bay is the country's largest oil producer, producing over 400,000 barrels a day. |
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