Investigation Thwarts Higher Pipeline Output : Energy: Alaska and U.S. officials are looking into allegations that workers falsified inspections.

Plans to move more oil out of Alaska to offset supplies lost due to the Persian Gulf crisis are being complicated by state and federal investigations into charges that workers on the 800-mile Trans-Alaska Pipeline falsified inspections of corrosion problems.

The investigations center on allegations made by a former employee of a pipeline subcontractor that workers ignored potential cracks and corrosion, were poorly trained and used drugs and alcohol on the job.

While the investigations are under way, Alyeska Pipeline Service Co. said it has been denied permission by the federal Department of Transportation to boost the pressure of oil flowing through a key section of the pipeline for fear of a break.

Though neither Alyeska officials nor spokesmen for oil companies expect any disruptions in oil flow as a result, state officials say such restrictions could hamper plans to ship more oil through the pipeline.

“We’re about as high as we’re willing to go right now until we know how significant the problems are,” said Rod Swope, commissioner for the state Department of Natural Resources, which is responsible for pipeline safety and operations on state lands.

As early as next week, Alyeska plans to unearth and reinspect two buried sections whose inspections were challenged by Edward W. Thompson, a former inspector for subcontractor Thorpe Technical Services of Anchorage.

Meanwhile, federal and state investigators on Friday interviewed Thompson, who worked for Thorpe from March until July, when he was fired for allegedly driving company vehicles for personal use. Officials would not comment Friday on their findings.

Dale Thorpe, president of the subcontractor, has denied Thompson’s charges, calling them “vicious.” Alyeska has said it will cooperate fully with the investigations.

The inquiries are the latest in a series of problems surrounding Alyeska, a consortium of seven oil companies, led by BP America Inc. and Los-Angeles-based Atlantic Richfield Co., that operates the pipeline. The 13-year-old conduit moves about a quarter of the oil produced in the United States.

Alyeska already is dealing with corrosion problems on the pipeline, as well as charges of air pollution and fallout from the company’s botched initial response to the oil spill from the Exxon Valdez.

More oil has been pumped through the Trans-Alaska Pipeline since the Aug. 2 Iraqi invasion of Kuwait.

Marnie Isaacs, an Alyeska spokeswoman in Anchorage, estimated that the “throughput,” or amount of oil flowing through the pipeline, is now about 1.95 million barrels a day, compared to between 1.6 million and 1.8 million barrels a day before the crisis.

With new gas handling plants and well stimulation, producers have said they could increase production to as much as 2 million barrels a day. The pipeline has a maximum capacity of about 2.1 million barrels a day.

In the meantime, the investigation is being undertaken by the federal Bureau of Land Management and the Department of Transportation, as well as the Alaska state Department of Natural Resources and other agencies.

In a letter dated Oct. 3, Thompson claimed that he and other workers were not trained for some of the work Thorpe asked them to perform, including a type of magnetic inspection designed to verify corrosion.

As a result, Thompson said, the inspections “were fraudulent.” While working on two separate sections of pipe, Thompson said he thought he saw cracks or corrosion, but was told in each instance by a supervisor to ignore them.

It is those two sections, each about 80 to 100 feet long, that Alyeska will dig up next week to see if Thompson is telling the truth, Isaacs said. An independent contractor, not Thorpe, will be hired to reinspect the pipeline.

If true, Thompson’s allegations could bring into question the integrity of large sections of the pipeline that carry hot oil through virgin territory.

But it is unlikely that the pipeline would need to be shut down, officials said.