Oct. 21--A panel of national scientific experts is raising serious concerns about the state-led, $5 million project to evaluate risks posed by Alaska's aging oil and gas infrastructure.

The study, initiated by former Gov. Sarah Palin, was triggered by recent spills, leaks and corrosion on the North Slope, including the 2006 spill that shut down half of Prudhoe Bay for weeks and resulted in multimillion-dollar penalties for BP, the Prudhoe operator.

But the National Academy of Sciences said in a 45-page report circulated Tuesday that the state's study -- as currently designed -- is unlikely to meet its own ambitious goals.

The study, funded by the Legislature in 2007, involves reviewing and ranking oil and gas-related risks along the 800-mile trans-Alaska oil pipeline, at the Valdez tanker port and at North Slope and Cook Inlet fields.

The Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation launched the study last fall and spent a year gathering public input. It hired contractors to design the study, based on that input.

After the contractors published the study's proposed design, the DEC asked the National Academy of Sciences to evaluate it. In its report, a seven-member National Academy panel said the design is "problematic" and state regulators should make major revisions to ensure that the study will produce useful results.

MAJOR REVISIONS

The state faces a big challenge because the problems it is trying to pin down are complex, said Paul Fischbeck, the Carnegie Mellon University professor who chaired the panel.

As designed, the study would involve sifting through a massive amount of data. Also, it assumes oil and gas "industry cooperation that is neither promised or likely to be forthcoming," the panel's report says.

Even if companies provide the large amount of data requested, it may not result in useful findings, according to the report.

For example, the panel wrote that it is unlikely the study's methods would detect the sort of problems that led to several major problems involving Alaska's oil infrastructure in recent years.

The study probably wouldn't have detected the kind of errors in oil-field management that caused the 2006 spills on the North Slope, or detected the communication failures and other problems that almost caused a catastrophic fire at a trans-Alaska pipeline pump station last winter, the report says.

The report notes that state regulators have not yet secured cooperation from oil and gas producers to provide their data. The state needed that cooperation early on in the project, the report says.