Prudhoe discovery, 1967

30 Strong is a special publication from Petroleum News $1.95 2 30 Strong: Celebrating three decades of oil production from Alaska’s North Slope 30 Strong: Celebrating three decades of oil production from Alaska’s North Slope 3 4 30 Strong: Celebrating three decades of oil production from Alaska’s North Slope 30 Strong: Celebrating three decades of oil production from Alaska’s North Slope 5

CONTENTS 8 Mega-line drives industry technology 28 Reducing development footprint 30-year old trans-Alaska pipeline adopts best new Directional drilling, technical innovations technology for safe, reliable operation dramatically reduce environmental impact

14 32 Computer tech revolutionizes seismic Better data resolution, high-tech processing create collaborative approach to subsurface

30 Strong Celebrating three decades of oil production from Alaska’s North Slope Released October 2007 PETROLEUM NEWS PO Box 231647 Anchorage, AK 99523-1647 32 Phone: (907) 522-9469 Fax: (907) 522-9583 14 TAPS: Young after 30 years www.petroleumnews.com Over past 10 years Alyeska achieved 99.5% 36 Can seismic detect oil and gas? Petroleum News magazine staff pipeline mechanical reliability rate Direct hydrocarbon identification has progressed; KAY CASHMAN • Publisher & Executive Editor still possible to drill a duster 20 Seismic moves into 21st century MARY MACK • Chief Financial Officer ROSE RAGSDALE • Contract editor Technical progress enables assembly 38 Gravel use has technical challenges ALAN BAILEY • Staff writer of increasingly detailed subsurface information Oil industry, regulators join forces on slope, SUSAN CRANE • Advertising Director convert mines into fish, waterfowl habitat STEVEN MERRITT • Production Director 24 Extending the drilling envelope TOM KEARNEY • Advertising Design Evolving technologies enable extraction of more 42 The drilling waste dilemma TIM KIKTA • Copy Editor and more oil from Alaska’s North Slope Hardrock mining technology adapted for modern CLINT LASLEY • Circulation Director grind-and-inject disposal SHANE LASLEY • IT Director

- Àˆ˜Žˆ˜} ÃÕÀv>Vi vœœÌ«Àˆ˜Ì] iÝ«>˜`ˆ˜} ÃÕLÃÕÀv>Vi Vœ˜Ì>VÌ Main cover photo by Judy Patrick. Other 45 With DRA pipeline less of a drag photos courtesy of Alan Bailey, Alyeska £™Çä £™nä £™nx £™™™‡*ÀiÃi˜Ì ÓäÊ>VÀià Pipeline Service Co. and Gill Mull £ÈÊ>VÀià £ÓÊ>VÀià >VÀià ÀˆÃˆÌi ÈÊ Chemical additive -ˆâi Cover design by Steven Merritt £ä]äää¿ enables Alyeska xäÓ >VÀià Ó]ä£ä >VÀià £n]ä™È >VÀià ÎÓ]£Çä >VÀià Printed by Camai Printing, ­°än õ “ˆiî ­Î°£ õ “ˆiî ­Ón°Î õ “ˆiî ­xä°Î õ “ˆiî Pipeline Service Co. -ÕLÃÕÀv>Vi Anchorage, Alaska Àˆ>Li to achieve huge MILE MILES MILES MILES
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50

92

47 Seeking systems for all seasons 68 Pipeline pigs dig the dirty work After 30 years of upgrades, Alyeska brings Instruments used by Alyeska to monitor, maintain telecommunications, computer systems to peak 30-year-old infrastructure have improved

50 Better mousetraps for inland spills 72 Prevention fuels best practices hunt Alyeska Pipeline Service Co. scored big with recent SERVS, terminal benefit from Alyeska’s commitment advances in emergency preparedness to doing it right, best technology

54 A tale of two leaks 75 Corrosion battle began on Day 1 Emergency response quicker, more effective Ongoing campaign slows aging in trans-Alaska in 23 years between oil spills at Alyeska oil pipeline, yields technology dividends

58 UERD for offshore development 78 VMT gets vapor control technology Ultra extended reach drilling enables Liberty Air quality improves after Alyeska installs vapor offshore development without gravel island control system at Valdez terminal

60 Airtight seal skins 80 Engineering ingenuity pays off inspire rolligons EOR techniques developed over three decades Traditional Alaska Native succeed beyond developers’ wildest dreams knowledge yields secret of technology to California inventor 86 Meeting Northstar’s challenges Technology helps island development succeed in 63 A vanishing footprint sensitive environment with leak detection, smart wells Use of ice-based infrastructure minimizes impact of winter exploration activity 90 Exploration rigs more mobile

66 Insulated ice pads extend season 92 The quest for happy caribou Innovation minimizes environmental impact, shrinks After 30 years of study, much learned about Central exploration footprint, cuts costs Arctic herd as industry continues to accommodate 30 Strong: Celebrating three decades of oil production from Alaska’s North Slope 7 8 30 Strong: Celebrating three decades of oil production from Alaska’s North Slope JUDY PATRICK JUDY

The 800-mile trans-Alaska pipeline system starts at Prudhoe Bay and terminates at the Port of Valdez. Mega-line drives industry technology 30-year old trans-Alaska pipeline adopts best new technology for safe, reliable operation

By ROSE RAGSDALE ogy did not exist for pro- the North Slope has mushroomed n the 30 years since operators moved duction in such an environ- from just Prudhoe Bay,still North the first barrel of Prudhoe Bay oil down ment. Normal steel pilings America’s largest oil discovery. I the trans-Alaska pipeline in 1977, would crumble like soda Today,the slope is home to an improvements in technology have illumi- straws when driving into industrial complex that stretches nated the path forward on Alaska’s North the permafrost.” from the 1 billion-barrel Alpine Slope. More than 20 years field near the National Petroleum Beginning in the exploration years lead- later,Yergin marveled at the Reserve-Alaska in the west some 60 ing to the 1968 discovery of the giant changes wrought by the miles to the east where the Badami Prudhoe Bay field, explorers and their con- industry with the aid of field produces oil just 23 miles tractors faced unprecedented challenges in technology.“This industry from the border of the Arctic coping with the fragile tundra with its shal- … can, at $15 or $16 a bar- National Wildlife Refuge. low overburden and deep layer of per- rel, do things that it For oil companies operating in mafrost and the other effects of frigid tem- thought it couldn’t do at $30 a barrel a Alaska’s Arctic, getting from 1977 to 2007 is peratures that dipped as low as minus 70 decade ago. It’s an industry that’s being an untold story of ingenuity and technolog- degrees Fahrenheit. transformed by technology and computers. ical advancements. Operators and their “It was a place unlike any other from It’s an industry that can do much better at contractors pursued development of oil which oil had yet been recovered,”wrote lower prices. It’s an industry that’s sur- fields on the North Slope with vigor and Pulitzer Prize-winning author Daniel Yergin prised itself.” optimism. First, they pulled out the stops to in commenting on the times.“The technol- Over three decades, industry activity on ramp up crude production to a peak of 30 Strong: Celebrating three decades of oil production from Alaska’s North Slope 9

2.15 million barrels per day in the late 1980s and then to adopt and create new technologies in the aftermath of the cata- GIL MULL strophic Exxon Valdez oil spill and to cope with declining ANS production and the effects of exploration and production activ- ities on the fragile tundra. Between 1985 and 1989, for example, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and BP Exploration (Alaska) Inc. worked jointly to restore the habitat along the 10-mile-long Endicott road. Researchers transplanted native grasses and successfully re-vegetated disturbed aquatic sites.

Innovation poorly documented Each new problem spawned a solution, often involving new or improved technolo- gy.Increasingly innovative, the industry developed better and better ways to con- duct economic, efficient and environmen- tally benign operations in the sensitive Drill stem test No. 5 on Feb. 18, 1968, recovered both gas and oil and clearly showed that oil could be produced from Prudhoe Bay State No. 1 Arctic. “There are just thousands of things. 1980s when he worked as general manager and they would say,‘If you don’t want to We’ve not well-documented the innova- of ARCO Alaska-operated Kuparuk, North have your job cut, you should stay close to tions up there,”longtime Alaska oil industry America’s second-largest oil field. the coil.’” executive Jim Weeks said of the history of At one point, recalled Weeks,“I was sign- New technologies were developed or technological advancements on the North ing patent applications at a rate of two a acquired and applied as the need arose in Slope. Today,Weeks is co-owner of two of month for the guys in ARCO’s coiled tubing every discipline: exploration, development Alaska’s few oil independents,Winstar LLC group. “I got a kick out of those guys.We and production. Some technologies, such as and Ultrastar LLC, but he remembers the were doing some downsizing at the time, see TAPS page 10 Pipeline Partnership

Providing oil field drilling and production support has been our mission on the North Slope for over twenty years. Whether it’s building ice roads or pads, moving rigs or equipment or providing field maintenance services,

Peak has been a partner in atrick Photography keeping oil safely flowing off the Slope and down

the Pipeline. We’re the Photo by Judy P team you can depend on.

peakalaska.com 10 30 Strong: Celebrating three decades of oil production from Alaska’s North Slope continued from page 9 and gas separating facilities A big hurdle, for example, at the Alpine would take up half the field, which was built in the late 1990s, was TAPS space they currently occu- the need to build oil and gas transmission the use of ice roads and py.Today’s fields also are pipelines across the Colville River, an eco- ice pads for exploration constructed more quickly, logically important tributary that drains wells and the Arctic 30 Strong at less cost and with less about 60 percent of the North Slope into surface disturbance. the Beaufort Sea during breakup and is Drilling Platform, are Wouldn’t it be great if we could North Slope operators nearly a mile wide. unique to the Arctic and see underground oil or gas like now use new seismic and Alpine’s owners, with the help of con- were largely developed in Superman? We can, using remote sensing technolo- tractors, succeeded in using horizontal Alaska. direct hydrocarbon indicators gies, including satellite and directional drilling technology to lay 4,000 Other advances, how- in seismic data. To learn more, aerial surveying, to improve feet of pipeline 100 feet below the river ever, such as 3-D seismic- see page 32. data acquisition, horizon- their odds of finding oil bottom.The HDD technology had been tal and multilateral and gas.This cuts the cost used all over the world, but the Colville drilling, measurement while drilling, low of drilling and lessens the environmental River crossing was its first application in ground-pressure vehicles (rolligons) and impact of exploration. the frozen ground of the Arctic. remote sensing, were developed elsewhere Drilling technologies have advanced TAPS encourages innovation and adapted for use on the North Slope. until wells can be drilled in any direction Though some of these newer technolo- with multiple completions from the same Alyeska Pipeline Service Co., operator of gies have been used extensively,and the well bore that can reach different zones of the 800-mile trans-Alaska oil pipeline sys- newer fields (such as Alpine) use them a reservoir without disturbing surface tem, took a leadership role in developing almost exclusively,older technologies are ecosystems.The use of smaller diameter technologies to improve the pipeline’s still integral parts of the older portions of holes and new drilling techniques is also operations, especially in corrosion control, the Prudhoe Bay and Kuparuk fields. reducing waste, noise, visual effects, fuel leak detection and petroleum transporta- If the entire Prudhoe Bay oil field had consumption and emissions, regulators say. tion. From the pipeline’s first day of opera- been built with today’s technology,its sur- tion, June 20, 1977,Alyeska engineers and Triumph at Colville River face area would be 64 percent smaller than technicians have developed and adapted its current size, regulators say.Drilling pads Operators continuously encounter and numerous applications that have estab- would be 74 percent smaller and roads overcome new challenges with the help of lished new and improved standards for would cover 58 percent less area, while oil technology. safety and reliability. After the Exxon Valdez oil spill in 1989, for example,Alyeska improved its tanker escort system by commissioning powerful tugboats equipped to prevent marine acci- dents by stopping oil tankers within sec- onds if necessary.These vessels also boast the latest in firefighting technology. Government regulators and policy mak- ers applaud the industry for its use of tech- nology to reduce the impact of oil field operations on the environment, especially in waste management, and in minimizing the size of production facilities, the use of gravel, and the number of wells required to find and evaluate a new field. “There have been many good examples on the North Slope of exactly what former Governor (Tony) Knowles calls ‘Doing it right,’”said Michelle Brown, former com- missioner of the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation and longtime environmental activist. Brown, speaking to a group in 2000, cited as examples injection technologies that have virtually eliminated surface waste, insightful and effective research studies that help regulators track the effects of oil field activities, and advances that have greatly reduced the surface area required www.carlile.biz l 1.800.478.1853 for oil field drilling and development. ALASKA I UNITED STATES I CANADA ROAD - RAIL - SEA - AIR Another example, remote sensing tech- see TAPS page 12 30 Strong: Celebrating three decades of oil production from Alaska’s North Slope 11 12 30 Strong: Celebrating three decades of oil production from Alaska’s North Slope COURTESY ALYESKA PIPELINE SERVICE CO. PIPELINE SERVICE ALYESKA COURTESY

The first oil is shipped on the ARCO Juneau from Valdez on Aug. 1, 1977. continued from page 10 Technology no panacea operations. The newer tech- continue to overcome chal- nologies have resulted in lenges as they arise. New mate- But Brown and other regula- TAPS increased protection for the rials such as advanced titanium tors are quick to add that tech- environment, but they have not alloys and advanced metal-free niques, have improved early nology has not solved all of the eliminated the potential for composites will improve the detection and tracking of spills, industry’s problems in the accidents, they say. reliability,performance, and and have helped with recogni- Arctic. Nor has it removed all Gov.Sarah Palin issued a corrosion-resistance, weight tion of key habitat for caribou, risk associated with oil field she said. statement in May 2007, and cost-effectiveness of acknowledging the role tech- drilling and production facili- nology has played in North ties. Slope operations, but also point- Advancements in biotech- Solutions ing out that innovation must be nology,nanotechnology and, viewed as part of a bigger pic- more immediately,information ture as the oil fields mature: technology,such as computing Still, a solid track record of power, automation, remote forward momentum in techno- sensing and miniaturization logical improvements in Alaska also could potentially trans- suggests that innovators will form oil field operations. ◆

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21342 Petroleum News Ad_quarter 1 1 8/10/2007 3:51:32 PM 30 Strong: Celebrating three decades of oil production from Alaska’s North Slope 13

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combi aircraft. Designed to each fuel-efficient than the 737-200s Dillingham accommodate 1,700 cubic feet of cargo they’re replacing, also feature Adak Anchorage King Salmon Cordova state-of-the-art navigation flight Dutch Harbor To Chicago Kodiak Yakutat OUR EXPANDED FLEET guidance technology, including a Heads-up Guidance System, allowing Glacier Bay Juneau To Denver Sitka Petersburg the flight crew to more successfully Wrangell MORE ON THE navigate challenging Ketchikan – airports and foggy HORIZON conditions. That Transporting cargo is means we can critical to the state of World’s first Boeing 737-400 passenger combi fly safely and Alaska, more so than To Seattle any other place we serve. To Portland, dependably in the Los Angeles unforgiving North Slope climate. That’s why we’ll be divided into four pallets in front, and introducing the fifth combi to the 72 very comfortable passengers in MORE ROOM – Duetoits fleet in the next six months, expanding back, the improved combis will allow permanentfixedconfiguration,each our total cargo capacity by 20 percent you to welcome more of your precious combi will be able to guarantee more (or a half-ton of mail, equipment, parts cargo — whether that’s passengers and more cargo than and care packages from home, to put it employees or electronics traditional versions. Equipped with in perspective). Servicing points — all on one flight. And pallets that are 20 percent larger, the throughout Alaska, our with two daily round-trip combis will house 50 percent more combis are just one flights to Prudhoe Bay, cargo than their predecessors. Passengers example of our rotating your work crew will benefit from more room too, with ongoing commitment on the North Slope has never full-sized overhead bins, comfy leather to the people and the been more convenient. seats and increased leg room. businesses of the North Slope.

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COMMITTED TO CARGO 14 30 Strong: Celebrating three decades of oil production from Alaska’s North Slope DAVID PREDEGER/ALYESKA PIPELINE SERVICE CO. PIPELINE SERVICE PREDEGER/ALYESKA DAVID

The trans-Alaska oil pipeline viewed from the Haul Road in northern Alaska. An unrivaled engineering feat, the pipeline has emerged as a technology leader in Alaska’s oil industry. TAPS: Young after 30 years Over past 10 years Alyeska achieved 99.5% pipeline mechanical reliability rate

By ROSE RAGSDALE giant Prudhoe Bay oil field.The concept part of Chevron) and Koch Alaska t is an unrivaled engineering marvel soon evolved into the world’s largest Pipeline. compared by some with the Great ever privately funded construction pro- I ject.A massive engineering achievement, A construction milestone Wall of China. It has safely and reliably delivered incomparable wealth in petro- it cost about $30 billion in today’s dol- It took just two years to build the leum riches to the American people over lars.That includes $24 billion in initial pipeline, with six years of construction three decades.And it continues to trans- capital investment, plus ongoing costs. planning before the first shovel bit the port oil and natural gas liquids some 800 Oil flow through the line peaked at earth — a total of 515 federal and 832 miles from Alaska’s North Slope to the 2.15 million barrels per day in January state permits was required to secure use marine terminal in Valdez, for shipment 1988. But a gradual decline in production of the right of way and meet other by tanker to the U.S.West Coast and else- from North Slope oil fields has since cur- requirements. where. tailed oil flow to about 800,000 barrels About 2,000 contractors and subcon- The trans-Alaska pipeline accepted its per day.At its peak, oil put through the tractors were chosen to work on the pro- first barrel of oil at pump station 1 at pipeline was a major component of the ject. Five contractors were each given Prudhoe Bay on June 20, 1977. Since total U.S. and West Coast oil supply, and it responsibility for different sections of the then this 48-inch-diameter steel conduit still represents 16 percent of total U.S. pipeline.These were Morrison-Knudson- that snakes its way across three major domestic production. Rivers, Perini Arctic Associates, H.C. Price, mountain ranges, 834 rivers and streams Alyeska Pipeline Service Co. operates Associated Green and Arctic Constructors. and numerous creeks has quietly moved the pipeline and Valdez terminal on And construction contractors hauled a more than 15 billion barrels of North behalf of five owner companies, BP variety of earthmoving equipment into Slope crude towards market. Pipelines (Alaska) Inc., ConocoPhillips the wilds of Alaska, from backhoe loaders The pipeline was first conceived in Transportation Alaska Inc., ExxonMobil to tractors, excavators and trucks, for the late 1960s after the discovery of the Pipeline Co., Unocal Pipeline Co. (now everything from clearing the right of way 30 Strong: Celebrating three decades of oil production from Alaska’s North Slope 15 to digging trenches, cutting “We are following the “We’ve made some pretty through the pipeline, internal through bedrock and erecting development of technology,” bold technological changes corrosion isn’t as much of a bridges. said Mike Joynor, vice presi- since the Exxon Valdez spill,” concern as external corro- A total of 70,000 contrac- dent of oil movements at said Jones.“I think our biggest sion. tor personnel worked on the Alyeska.“We never want to be lesson learned is that you can- “If you look at our history pipeline over the life of the on the absolute edge of tech- not have that spill.We just over the past 30 years, as we project, from 1969 to 1977.At nology, but once it’s mature, cannot let that happen ever do our inline surveillance and its peak, in October 1975, the we reach a point when it’s again.” our inline pigging runs … project involved 28,072 peo- hard to find support for our Toward that end,Alyeska’s what we always have seen ple, including Alyeska employ- legacy technology.” marine and emergency pre- and continue to look for is the ees and contractors.There That attitude is grounded paredness departments have impact of external corrosion, were 31 fatalities directly in a certain amount of com- assembled an impressive primarily as a result of water related to the construction, mon sense. inventory of the world’s most getting underneath the insula- including Alyeska, contractors “We want to avoid having sophisticated oil spill preven- tion,”said Kevin Hostler, presi- and subcontractors. to create our own design.The tion and response equipment. dent and CEO of Alyeska. The pipeline crosses sever- way we say that is ‘serial num- Alyeska’s ongoing corro- al high mountain passes, ber 0001.’We don’t want our 30 years young sion detection program began requiring pumping of the own designs because they But, at 30, the pipeline is shortly after startup. crude up the mountain usually have issues when they relatively young by industry The company requires slopes. Four different pump are first deployed.We like to standards. Some oil and gas pipeline repair or replace- stations, for example, succes- go to people who have done pipelines built in the Lower ment in any area where sur- sively raised the pressure of this kind of work and have 48 before 1950 are still in veillance discovers a corro- the oil to push it over Atigun proven technology,”explained operation. sion anomaly affecting more Pass, at an elevation of nearly Greg Jones,Alyeska’s senior And although external than 40 percent of the 4,800 feet. vice president of operations. forces have conspired against pipeline wall, Hostler said. More than 225 access Some needs have surfaced the pipeline’s integrity a hand- That standard applies to roads were built, linking state naturally over the years, ful of times, no corrosion- the whole length of the roads to pump stations and 14 reflecting the toll that time related oil spill has ever pipeline, despite the fact that temporary airfields. can take on any large and occurred on the main line of only about one-third of the Thirteen bridges were built complex mechanical system. the trans-Alaska oil pipeline. pipeline lies in “high-conse- for the pipeline system, Examples include repairs that Because dry oil passes see THE PIPELINE page 16 including two suspension have resulted from the bridges. pipeline shifting and settling Three million tons of mate- over time and complications rials, including 0.5-inch-thick brought on in recent years by pipes manufactured in Japan, the decrease in oil flow in the were shipped to Alaska for the pipeline. pipeline construction. But other challenges have And because the oil enter- burst upon the scene on the ing the pipeline is hot, about wings of disaster. Incidents 420 miles of the pipeline is such as the 16,000 barrels of elevated on 78,000 specially oil spilled in an act of sabo- designed vertical support tage in February 1978, and the members, to protect the 260,000 barrels of crude underlying permafrost.The spilled in Prince William remaining 376 miles of Sound when the Exxon Valdez pipeline are buried. oil tanker ran aground on Bligh Reef in March 1989, Many upgrades three days before the system The pipeline system would complete its 9,000th involves a complex assembly tanker loading.These events of mechanical components, haunt the memories of together with supporting Alyeska Pipeline’s longtime computer systems.And over employees, especially those the years Alyeska has made charged with scouring the many upgrades, in response to earth for better and safer tech- operational, maintenance, safe- nologies with which to oper- ty and environmental needs. ate the pipeline system.Their But Alyeska personnel have goal is to prevent future disas- tended to adopt innovations ters and to be ready if, by from others, rather than some fluke, the worst should inventing untried solutions. happen again. 16 30 Strong: Celebrating three decades of oil production from Alaska’s North Slope continued from page 15 THE PIPELINE quence” areas where the U.S. Department of Transportation would mandate that 40 percent limit, Hostler said. In less critical

areas, DOT requires repair or replace- CO. PIPELINE SERVICE ALYESKA ment when corrosion anomalies affect 80 percent of the pipeline’s one-half inch wall thickness, he said. Alyeska does worry that the aging infrastructure issues that have surfaced on the North Slope also might apply to the pump stations. So, the company is running a continuous monitoring pro- gram in the pump stations, using inline investigation tools. For example, an analy- sis of monitoring data collected since the summer of 2006 has indicated that the infrastructure in pump stations 1 to 4 is in good condition, Hostler said.

Strategic reconfiguration As well as monitoring the mechanical condition of the pipeline system,Alyeska has been engaged in a major upgrade of the pump stations and the Valdez Marine Terminal. Known as strategic reconfigura- tion, the upgrade is replacing 1970s-era turbine-powered pumps with state-of-the- art electrically powered pumps.And in February 2007 Pump Station 9, the first pump station to convert to the new tech- nology, switched over to the electrical system (see “TAPS switches to 21st centu- ry” in the March 4 edition of Petroleum News). Pipe being buried during construction. In most cases, pipelines are buried, but almost half of the trans-Alaska “The technology that built the pump oil pipeline is above ground because a lot of the ground where it runs is underlain by permafrost. The heat stations was the same technology that from the oil, which comes out of the ground at 150-180° F, could thaw the frozen soil if the 48-inch pipeline was in my Mercury Comet and now was buried, possibly causing the pipe to buckle and break. The pipeline runs approximately 420 miles above ground and approximately 380 miles underground.

30 Strong: Celebrating three decades of oil production from Alaska’s North Slope 17 ALYESKA PIPELINE SERVICE CO. PIPELINE SERVICE ALYESKA

May 31, 1977: Final pipeline weld near Pump Station 3. we’re dealing with technology and capa- “We’re either going at full speed or any oil throughput up to 1.1 million bar- bility that’s more like … one of these we’re off line,”Heatwole said.“We were rels per day, using just four pump sta- electrical hybrids that we’re all looking very challenged in how we operated the tions, plus a relief station on the south at,”Hostler said. pipeline at the low throughputs present- side of the Brooks Range.The addition of Strategic reconfiguration is about ed during last year’s shutdown of the more pumps at each of those pump sta- increasing the efficiency of how Alyeska Prudhoe Bay field. If we had had the new tions could up the throughput to 1.5 mil- operates the pipeline system — both the equipment on line, we would have had lion barrels per day. In the event of a pumping and the control of the line, said significantly better performance of the large new oil find, the reinstatement of spokesman Mike Heatwole. system.” old pump stations using new equipment “It’s really about applying current In fact,Alyeska will be able to adjust could increase throughput to 2 million pipeline technology to TAPS — much the operation of new pump systems to see THE PIPELINE page 18 more efficient … and better perfor- mance,”he explained.“It also helps us with maintenance as we get a lot more real time data on what is happening with each piece of new equipment.The sys- tem is designed to be modular and scal- able — greatly improving our ability to operate through changes in pipeline throughput — both increases and decreases.” Also, the variable frequency drive that sends power to each new pump allows much greater control of pumping over a wide range of pipeline throughputs, unlike the original configuration, which does not allow much variability in the speed of the pumps. 18 30 Strong: Celebrating three decades of oil production from Alaska’s North Slope continued from page 17 We’re monitoring it,”Hostler look at its contracting strategy said.“… We continue to look and is re-evaluating the ques- THE PIPELINE for opportunities to deal with tion of what work to do inside barrels per day. it.” the company and what work to At the Valdez Marine The reconfigured pump sta- contract out. Terminal,Alyeska is reducing 30 Strong tions also have the capability of “Finding the right level of cycling and warming the oil, to internal capability and third- the number of oil storage tanks What if two guys could build a from 18 to 14 or 15.The com- dissolve some of the wax, he party capability is a real chal- dam to stop flooding in just a said. lenge,”Hostler said.“… We’ve pany is also redesigning and few minutes? They can, using a looked at our contracting strate- reconfiguring the ballast water Megasecur water dam. In five Dedicated but aging staff gy and thought through where treatment facility,to significant- minutes, they can erect the we want to bring some of these ly reduce the ballast and storm same protection it would take Successful operation of the skills back in house.And we water capacity,Hostler said. six people to build in two hours pipeline system over the years have done that.And where we And the heightened pump with sandbags. To learn more, has depended on personnel want to rely on the external station efficiency,together with see page 50. who have responded to chal- size reductions at the marine lenges facing them with energy market we’re going to continue to do that.” terminal, will all result in pipeline architecture, the com- and ingenuity. reduced emissions, Hostler said. “We have a tremendous pany is also dealing with a new High reliability Control and monitoring of technical issue: the increasing staff, really talented,”said all operations will take place amount of wax that is precipi- Alyeska President and CEO Alyeska particularly wants to from a single control room after tating from the oil in the line. Kevin Hostler. maintain the pipeline’s exem- strategic configuration, thus Some of that wax passes And, with a successful plary performance record. Over enabling greatly enhanced effi- through the system and eventu- Native hire program, 20 percent the past 10 years the company ciency in the pipeline opera- ally dissolves back into the oil of the Alyeska staff consists of has achieved a pipeline tions and maintenance — day- when the oil is later warmed Alaska Natives, he said. mechanical reliability rate of to-day control of the original up. However, some wax But, along with declining oil 99.5 percent, Hostler said. pump systems resides in the requires collection and separate throughput,Alyeska staff num- “That is terrific,”Hostler said. individual pump stations, with shipment. bers have decreased from “… As we’ve seen declining the Valdez control room provid- The wax started appearing about 1,300 workers and con- throughput and we’ve seen ing general operational over- in 1989, primarily because, as tractors in the early 1990s to some of the challenges associat- sight. the oil movement through the some 800 today.And that work ed with that, we’ve been able And the company is moving pipeline slowed with decreas- force is aging. to maintain a high degree of the pipeline control room from ing throughput, the oil became “The issue with staffing is operations confidence.” Valdez to Anchorage, into the cooler.The changing mix of more to do with the aging But operating the aging Government Hill offices of crude in the pipeline, as pro- work force,”Hostler said.“Fifty pipeline will continue to AT&T,Alyeska’s communica- duction from the mature North percent of my work force is require careful management. tions service provider, Hostler Slope oil field declines and new retirement eligible.” And the pipeline needs to said. fields come on stream, is also Hostler isn’t so much con- operate cost effectively,to main- resulting in more wax forma- cerned with replacing individ- tain the viability of North Slope Wax buildup new challenge tion, Hostler said. ual employees who might leave oil production. So, as the com- While Alyeska upgrades the “We’re pigging more often. the company as he is with the pany builds its budget each looming need to fill substantial year, the management seeks vacancies in the ranks. areas for increased operational “We do know that on a com- efficiency,while at the same petitive basis we can go out time managing risk mitigation. and replace, like-for-like, a num- “We see the challenge, but at ber of our staff,”Hostler said. the same time our process is “… But now we’re starting to intended to provide a stopgap look at renewing our work against taking undue risk,” force by targeting critical skills Hostler said.“And that’s what and bringing in people early in you’d expect of us, that we’d their career development.” put that priority on the security But the institutional knowl- of supply,maintaining safety edge that comes with years of and protecting the environ- experience enjoyed by the cur- ment.” rent staff becomes a significant And “no oil to ground” is a issue as people start to retire. company mantra, Hostler “We’ve got people who’ve added. ◆ been here almost 30 years and know a lot about how to oper- —Petroleum News staff ate the pipeline,”Hostler said. writer Alan Bailey contributed Alyeska is also taking a close to this article. 30 Strong: Celebrating three decades of oil production from Alaska’s North Slope 19 20 30 Strong: Celebrating three decades of oil production from Alaska’s North Slope Seismic moves into 21st century Technical progress enables assembly of increasingly detailed subsurface information

By ALAN BAILEY ay back in the early days of oil and gas exploration in northern W Alaska, seismic crews would wend their way across the tundra in Cat trains. Dynamite was the technology of choice for creating the sound waves that echo off subsurface rock formations to

provide information about underground ALASKA INC. CONOCOPHILLIPS COURTESY structures.And the end products of the surveys were printed, two-dimensional seismic cross-sections of the subsurface, containing only enough detail to depict The evolution of vibroseis vibrator trucks between the 1980s and the early 2000s: Low-pressure rubber major geologic features. tracks with articulated steering have replaced steel tracks with skid steering.

Change in the 1970s But by the 1970s, the approach toward surveying was starting to under- go radical change, as people became increasingly aware of the importance of protecting the delicate Arctic environ- ment and as evolving seismic technolo- gies began to improve the quality of the seismic images. ALASKA INC. CONOCOPHILLIPS COURTESY Instead of using ground-damaging dynamite, people started to create seis- mic sound waves using a technique known as vibroseis, in which a vibrator pad below a purpose-built truck trans- mits sound vibrations into the ground, Jon Anderson, ConocoPhillips Alaska partner and manager of Petrotechnical major improvements in vehicle designs, chief geophysicist, exploration and land, Resources of Alaska, told Petroleum to enable seismic crews to operate on told Petroleum News. News. the tundra in the winter without marking Vibroseis has now become the stan- At the same time, dramatic advances or, worse still, tearing up the tundra sur- dard sound source for on-land seismic in computer and recording technology, face. surveys, with the equipment and its including the miniaturization of compo- “One of the biggest things is the fact hydraulic-powered vibration systems nents and the ability to use small devices that back in the old days everything was becoming increasingly reliable,Anderson to record vast amounts of data, have steel tracked vehicles and they were all said. greatly reduced the size and weight of skid steered,”Faust said.“Nowadays Offshore, air guns near the sea surface the recording equipment that needs to everything’s articulated steering — rub- rather than explosives have become the be deployed on the tundra. ber tracked vehicles with very low pres- standard source for seismic sound — a “The dog house where all the record- sure on the tundra.” seismic survey vessel moving along a sur- ing is done … used to be the size of a The growing awareness of environ- vey line tows an array of air guns and semi-trailer, filled with equipment,” mental protection that has accompanied streamers of geophones, the devices that Anderson said.“Now there’s a guy in this these equipment improvements has led surveyors use to detect the seismic fairly small box with a computer.” to an expectation nowadays of zero envi- sound signals. “The recording equipment itself is ronmental impact. In the 1970s people And along the seacoast off Alaska’s probably a tenth of the weight that it just went out and shot seismic; in the North Slope, where the water is too shal- was 15 years ago, 10 years ago even,”said 1980s it became a question of trying not low for a traditional marine survey, a Michael Faust, offshore exploration man- to cause damage during a seismic survey; technique called ocean bottom seismic, ager for ConocoPhillips Alaska. today, companies won’t shoot seismic if in which surveyors lay cabled geophones they may cause any damage, Faust said. along the seafloor, has enabled geophysi- Improved vehicles And that’s in part been a question of cists to bridge what used to be a gap in And coupled with the reduction in changing people’s attitudes — for exam- coverage between onshore and offshore weight of the equipment have come ple, nowadays a crewmember will always seismic coverage,Tom Walsh, principal 30 Strong: Celebrating three decades of oil production from Alaska’s North Slope 21 pocket a used cigarette butt, rather than drop it onto the ground, Faust said.

Improved efficiency Surveying efficiency has also improved greatly over the years. Thirty years ago a survey COURTESY CONOCOPHILLIPS ALASKA INC. CONOCOPHILLIPS COURTESY crew would place wooden stakes in the ground using tri- angulation techniques, to mark out source and receiver locations,Anderson said. But GPS receivers that can instant- ly pinpoint equipment loca- tions have done away with the need for that time-con- suming manual survey proce- dure. And the designs of the sur- veys themselves have A variety of types of geophone that are laid on the ground to record seismic signals. Over the years geophones have improved, thanks to the avail- reduced in size and increased in reliability. ability of technology that ing older analogue technolo- of Christmas tree lights — the dra, without the need for vehi- enables the recording and gies. Modern electronics have logistics of transporting cable cles to transport and lay processing of vast amounts of reduced the size of these and managing the cable runs cabling. However, there are seismic data. devices,Anderson said.The forms a significant component problems with battery life in So, whereas years ago devices are now more robust of carrying out a seismic sur- the low temperatures of the crews would obtain more and reliable than they used to vey on land. But a new gener- Arctic winter, Faust said.And data by setting off more seis- be — whereas a survey crew ation of wireless geophones finding the devices in the mic shots, nowadays people used to deploy at least a has just come on the market. snow of a North Slope winter can increase data quantities dozen geophones at each These use lithium batteries, seismic survey season might by using more geophones. In recording location to ensure have built in GPS receivers present some interesting chal- fact it is possible to reduce the capture of usable data, and contain miniature lenges. the number of sound source crews have reduced that num- recorders with 10 gigabyte A fairly recent develop- shots needed to obtain high- ber now almost down to one flash drives, Faust said. ment that has seen some use resolution data. per station,Anderson said. The wireless geophones on the North Slope is a type “Now you can get great Geophones are strung out offer the enticing prospect of of geophone that can simulta- data with very little source across the ground along cable being able to simply drop geo- neously record sound vibra- impact,”Faust said. runs, rather like a huge string phones in position on the tun- And by the judicious place- see SEISMIC page 22 ment of the vibrator points and the geophones, it is also possible to reduce the amount of ground traversing done by the seismic survey vehicles. Increasing the num- ber of recording points, for example, might make it possi- ble to increase the spacing between adjacent routes taken by the vibrator vehicle from, say, 500 feet to 1,500 feet while still obtaining the same quality of seismic image, Faust explained.

Geophone development The last few decades have seen major improvements in geophone technology, with digital recording now replac- 22 30 Strong: Celebrating three decades of oil production from Alaska’s North Slope continued from page 21 But the demands for interactive viewing of seismic and other data are SEISMIC driving a need for ever-more-powerful PGS ONSHORE tions in three different directions, computer networks, to shunt massive rather than just the single sound quantities of data between server com- pressure variations recorded by a puters and computer workstations. traditional device, Faust said.The Nowadays, rather than wanting to move three-component geophones enable one or two gigabytes of data around the geophysicists to distinguish network, you might want to move sev- between pressure waves and shear eral hundred gigabytes, or maybe even a waves in the seismic signals.That terabyte, all at once, Konkler said. distinction enables data processing “And you want it right now,”Konkler that provides invaluable insights said.“You don’t want to have to sit into the physical properties of the A set of PGS Onshore rubber tracked vibrators operating in there and wait for an hour for it to load subsurface rocks. the Brooks Range Foothills of the North Slope. up on your machine and then find out The use of state-of-the-art, high- that your machine can’t hold all that resolution 3-D seismic surveying for oil- the huge strides that the seismic industry data.” field development has introduced a new has made in the past few decades. The rapid evolution of computer tech- problem for seismic surveyors: how to The ability to record and process the nology has also led to some interesting deal with ambient industrial noise that vast amount of data originating from issues relating to the use of old seismic can obscure the seismic signals detected many thousands of geophones respond- data, perhaps acquired several decades by the geophones, Jon Konkler, senior ing to multiple pulses from a vibroseis ago.That old seismic can represent a high- development geophysicist for BP unit or underwater airgun array has dollar exploration investment and can Exploration (Alaska), told Petroleum opened the door to ever increasing data often prove invaluable when reassessing a News. resolution from a decreased environmen- region for new exploration.And modern The seismic industry has developed tal footprint.And state-of-the-art comput- processing can often extract more informa- technologies for determining the noise at er technology has revolutionized seismic tion from the data than was apparent to an oilfield location and extracting that processing, visualization and interpreta- the geoscientists who originally interpret- noise from the seismic recordings. tion (see “Computer technology has revo- ed the data. “We can’t stop the noise in the field, lutionized seismic” in this publication). But the old data was typically stored on but as long as we know when it is and “Computer power has enabled a lot of reels of magnetic tape using a variety of where it is and can pinpoint where it’s advances in all technologies, and seismic recording formats, several of which have coming from that helps a lot in process- is one of the benefactors,”Konkler said. become obsolete. So, a whole industry has ing that noise,”Konkler said. And those advances in computer pro- evolved around services that enable the cessing have led to a vastly improved retrieval of data from old tapes.And Computer technology ability to locate and pinpoint oil and gas ConocoPhillips, for example, transfers its Alongside improved field acquisition reservoir, leading to improved drilling old data onto modern media about every technology, modern computer and com- success rates and the ability to locate the five years, rather than risk losing valuable munications technology probably repre- more elusive pools of subsurface oil and data that could have a future use, Faust ◆ sents the biggest single enabling factor in gas. said. 30 Strong: Celebrating three decades of oil production from Alaska’s North Slope 23 24 30 Strong: Celebrating three decades of oil production from Alaska’s North Slope JUDY PATRICK JUDY

A North Slope drilling rig (Nabors 2-ES rig). The rig is enclosed, apart from the upper part of the derrick, to protect the crew from the Arctic weather. The beige, box-shaped structures in the foreground house wellheads. Extending the drilling envelope Evolving technologies enable extraction of more and more oil from Alaska’s North Slope

By ALAN BAILEY But what if you want to deviate the of the string to turn the drill bit.The n these days of high-speed computers, well sideways, to penetrate an oil pool that motor was set to a small angle or “bend” modern home comforts and rapid is offset from the drilling pad or platform? that caused an accurate directional I Back in the 1960s and 1970s wells change. Drilling mud, a heavy fluid that is transportation, many people are proba- bly unaware of something that’s critical to could be deviated somewhat from the ver- pumped through the well during drilling maintaining their standard of life: high-tech tical, perhaps up to about 30 degrees, to maintain well pressure and remove oil and gas drilling technology.Without Randy Thomas, Greater Kuparuk Area rock cuttings, drove the motor. space-age drilling techniques we’d likely drilling team lead for ConocoPhillips told The next step in technical develop- be short many billions of barrels of oil pro- Petroleum News. Early deviation tech- ment came when people worked out how duction from increasingly challenging oil niques involved the placement of a steel to avoid having to pull the drill string from accumulations.And oil provinces such as wedge in the hole (called a whipstock) to the well when changing direction. Alaska would languish in a world of hurt, deflect the bit to one side of the hole, and “The step change then was the direc- as remaining recoverable reserves dwindle the fitting of a stabilizer on the drill string tional assembly that gave you the bend to uneconomic levels. in the well bore — the stabilizer would that you needed to point in the right act as a fulcrum to tilt the string as the direction with your surveys, but that Rotary drilling well deviated, Gary Christman, director, assembly was able to rotate and drill ahead In its simplest form, rotary drilling Alaska drilling and wells, for BP so you didn’t have to trip it out,”said involves turning a drill string in a well Exploration (Alaska), told Petroleum Jerome Eggemeyer, ConocoPhillips engi- bore, with a drill bit at the bottom of the News. neering team lead. string grinding its way through the rock. The first major innovation in this tech- With this type of assembly a change in That technique, dating back many nique involved pulling the drill string from direction was achieved by stopping the decades, results in near-vertical wells. the well and fitting a motor at the bottom rotation of the drill string, rotating the 30 Strong: Celebrating three decades of oil production from Alaska’s North Slope 25 JUDY PATRICK JUDY

The Nordic-Calista No. 2 rig is a coiled tubing rig that specializes in drilling coiled tubing sidetracks. The blue box-shaped structure at the back of the rig con- tains a large spool of coiled tubing. The tubing passes from the spool to a slot in the side of the derrick housing, from where it is guided down into the well. motor to the desired direction and then vertical depth increasing from around one Top drives pushing the string forward without rota- to one in the 1960s and 1970s to three to The introduction of the top drive in the tion while the motor-driven bit augured its one in the early 2000s. Nowadays drillers 1980s also proved to be a breakthrough in way to the new direction.After comple- have perfected the techniques to the point drilling technology. tion of the change in direction, the drillers where five-to-one ratios are being In a traditional drilling rig a device could resume the rotation of the drill achieved, with six-to-one ratios a possibili- called a Kelly bushing on the rig floor string when drilling continued. But friction ty in the near future,Thomas said. grips and rotates the drill pipe. Individual between the non-rotating drill stem and At the same time, drillers perfected 30-foot lengths of drill pipe are attached to the sides of the well during this procedure techniques for drilling wells horizontally the top of the drill string as the string imposed significant limitations on well through the rock strata. moves downward into the ground. lengths. The viable drilling of horizontal oil “You would pick up single joints of “When you try to get out to these wells originated in France in the early pipe, drill down 30 feet and make a con- extended reach limits you no longer have 1980s.The technique reached Alaska’s nection,”Thomas said. enough push to be able to slide it against North Slope in 1985 with the drilling of A top drive consists of an explosion- that friction,”said Terry Lucht, BP’s experimental JX2 well (the company proof electric motor suspended near the ConocoPhillips manager, drilling and wells. had previously proved the horizontal top of the drilling derrick. Drill pipe is A major breakthrough came in the mid- drilling techniques in the Braun Weiding attached to the drive in 90-foot stands, 1990s, with what drillers call “rotary steer- well in Texas), Christman said. with each stand consisting of three con- able technology.”Using intelligence within These early horizontals only extended a nected 30-foot sections.As the drive turns the downhole drilling tool the drillers few hundred feet, but subsequent refine- the piping, auguring the drill string into could steer the drilling direction of the bit ment of the technique has greatly extend- the ground, the drive is lowered down- while the drill string continued to rotate. ed well lengths. Nowadays horizontal dis- wards.A driller controls the drive from a These evolving drilling techniques gave tances of up to 10,000 feet have been console, Lucht said. rise to progressively larger amounts of achieved in the Alpine field on the North The ability of a top drive to handle mul- well deviation over the years, with the Slope, for example. ratio of bottom hole displacement to well see ENVELOPE page 26 26 30 Strong: Celebrating three decades of oil production from Alaska’s North Slope continued from page 25 Eggemeyer said. “By exposing that much ENVELOPE reservoir rock you’re able to tiple lengths of drill pipe great- open the door on this whole ly increases drilling speeds. new development of West Sak And, unlike a Kelly bushing, the oil,”Eggemeyer said.“It’s strictly a technology discovery.” top drive can rotate the drill (ALASKA) INC. BP EXPLORATION string when pulling the string And the multilateral technol- from the well, thus adding flex- ogy further increases that hori- ibility and control to drilling zontal well productivity — the operations. technology enables each branch Top drives underpin of the multilateral to be individ- advanced drilling techniques ually isolated, Christman such as rotary steerable drilling, explained. Christman said. In fact, the top “The drilling techniques are drive first appeared in Alaska as very conventional,”Christman an enabling technology for hori- said.“The key in these is the zontal drilling, he said. junction technology — how we set these wells up so that we Horizontal multilateral wells greatly improve well production rates and make Coiled tubing the development of viscous oil possible. actually have a hydraulic seal at that junction.” The use of coiled steel tub- when drilling is in progress and surface you can enter an old ing, 2 inches or two-and-three- can be rapidly pulled from the well and drill a lateral off of Measuring and logging eighths inches in diameter and well when necessary. that,”Lucht said. Traditionally,drillers and well reeled off drums in continuous “When you pull out of a hole A coiled tubing sidetrack logging companies surveyed lengths, has also revolutionized to change the bottom hole might cost just 20 to 25 percent and logged wells by lowering horizontal drilling. Coiled tubing assembly … you just basically of the cost of a complete new wireline tools down well bores. drilling techniques, particularly reel it up,”Thomas said. well, Christman said. But the use of wireline tools directionally drilled sidetracks Using a drill bit powered by Although coiled tubing required the pulling of the drill with coil, were pioneered in a mud motor, coiled tubing can drilling is cheaper and more string from the well, thus delay- Alaska in the 1990s, Christman worm its way out the side of an convenient than conventional ing the drilling operations. said. existing well bore and thread its drilling, it is also more limited in Additionally,the drilling of Conventional drilling way through a thin reservoir what it can do — the record increasingly deviated wells ren- involves the use of 30-foot sand, for example. In addition to distance for horizontal coiled dered the lowering of wireline lengths of larger diameter steel enabling access to sand bodies tubing drilling is only about tools increasingly difficult. drill pipe that need to be assem- that were bypassed by the origi- one-third of the record for “It’s like trying to slide down bled when drilling and disas- nal well, coiled tubing enables rotary directional drilling, a flat hill,”Thomas said. sembled when pulling the drill re-use of old wells during field Thomas said. A major technical break- string from the hole. Coiled tub- development. through came in the early ing, on the other hand, feeds “Instead of having to drill a Viscous oil and 1980s with the use of “measure- continuously into the well completely new well from the multilaterals ment while drilling,”in which The production of viscous pressure pulses transmit data oil from huge deposits of this through the drilling mud, thus material at relatively shallow enabling continuous monitoring depths in the central North of well measurements while the Slope has necessitated the use drilling is in progress.This tech- of multilateral, horizontal wells, nology evolved in the late in which up to five horizontal 1980s into “logging while well bores extend sideways drilling,”in which well log data from one central, vertical bore could be transmitted to the sur- that connects to the surface. face using the same technique. In the West Sak field,for And the “Morse code example, viscous oil in a pay through the mud”technology zone 75 to 100 feet thick would reached its logical conclusion not produce in viable quantities with the ability to send signals into a traditional near-vertical down the well to control the well. But horizontal well bores tools at the bottom of the well have now exposed as much as and steer the drill bit. 20,000 feet of pay in one well, “The tools are now interac- thus making economic produc- tive,”Thomas said.“You can send tion feasible from an oil pool a signal down and tell them discovered many years ago, what to do and they’ll do it.” 30 Strong: Celebrating three decades of oil production from Alaska’s North Slope 27

The combination of interactive down- Lucht said. wells, are enabling drillers to thread the hole tools and high-tech rotary steerable And computer systems support all of the drill strings through elusive pockets of oil, drilling has enabled the development of drilling activities by modeling the friction in thus greatly increasing the volume of oil extended reach drilling in which the hori- the hole, the torque on the drill string and recoverable from oil fields. zontal departure of the well can amount to by monitoring the progress of the drilling Improved drill bits reduce the frequen- 25,000 feet or more. operation. Nowadays, drilling engineers use cy with which drill strings have to be computer systems to plan a well before the pulled from a well during drilling, while Precision surveying drilling starts. Engineers on the drilling rigs advances in the design of drilling mud have Surveying the underground trajectory of then continuously refine the plan, using greatly improved the stability of the well a well involves measuring how the orienta- data obtained from the drilling operation. bores — that stability is critical to the tion of the well bore changes along the “At the planning stage we’ll model the drilling of long wells, Christman said. length of the well bore. Computer software well, but as we’re drilling we’ll collect data And, combined with enhanced oil translates these underground survey mea- every day and plug it back into the model, recovery techniques, all these new drilling surements into a plotted well path. update the model and project ahead, so we techniques translate to more oil.The origi- In general, well orientation measure- can make adjustments as we go,”Thomas nal estimate of recoverable oil from the ments are made using a kind of three- said.“So, we keep fulltime drilling engineers Prudhoe Bay field was 9 billion barrels. So dimensional magnetic compass. on the rigs today,just to keep up with that far the field has delivered 11.5 billion bar- Measurements near the surface, where a modeling.” rels and the current estimate for ultimate large number of closely packed steel well A thorough understanding of the loca- recovery is 13 billion barrels, BP casings may distort the Earth’s magnetic tion and physical characteristics of the sub- spokesman Daren Beaudo told Petroleum field, may also require the use of a gyro- surface rocks is especially critical to success News. scope. in horizontal drilling, Christman said. But Eggemeyer credits the various ser- But the proximity of the Earth’s magnet- vice companies involved in the drilling ic north pole to northern Alaska poses par- Combined impact industry for much of the continuing suc- ticular problems when doing magnetic sur- The combined impact of all of these cess in expanding the drilling envelope. veys in North Slope wells:The magnetic technologies — steerable drill assemblies, “We’ve got a lot of service companies pole moves continuously. top drives, coiled tubing, mud data trans- that are just pushing everything they can to “When you’re as close to the (magnetic) mission, magnetic monitoring and so on — get to the next step on technology,” North Pole as we are, if the North Pole has resulted in dramatic productivity bene- Eggemeyer said.“It’s certainly an industry moves a little bit, it changes our survey a fits. Precision wells, including horizontal effort.” ◆ lot,”Eggemeyer said. To deal with this problem, stations isolat- ed from the drilling operations continuously monitor the Earth’s magnetic field and pro- vide calibration data to correct the magnet- ic survey readings. And the end result? Stunning accuracy,with drillers able to penetrate a target a few tens of feet across several miles from the drilling rig (well log- ging techniques also enable a well to remain within a sand body just a few feet thick).

Seismic, computer technology State-of-the-art seismic surveys now pro- vide many of the drilling targets. Nowadays 3-D seismic surveys, involving the deploy- ment of arrays of huge numbers of seismic receivers, routinely produce high-resolution sound reflection images of oil fields — it’s a bit like taking an X-ray photo of an oil field using sound vibrations transmitted from the surface. A 4-D seismic survey involves repeating the same survey at regular time intervals and then comparing the results.A difference in a seismic reflection between two succes- sive surveys might, for example, pinpoint a pocket of oil that has eluded production. That pocket of oil might then become the target for a coiled tubing sidetrack well, 28 30 Strong: Celebrating three decades of oil production from Alaska’s North Slope JUDY PATRICK JUDY

The cantilevered drilling platform on a rig such as the Nordic-Calista No. 2 rig, shown here, minimizes the spacing necessary between the wellheads on a well pad. Reducing development footprint Directional drilling, technical innovations dramatically reduce environmental impact

By ALAN BAILEY or anyone wanting to see a case-book - Àˆ˜Žˆ˜} ÃÕÀv>Vi vœœÌ«Àˆ˜Ì] iÝ«>˜`ˆ˜} ÃÕLÃÕÀv>Vi Vœ˜Ì>VÌ example of how environmental pro- F tection can make perfect business £™Çä £™nä £™nx £™™™‡*ÀiÃi˜Ì sense,Alaska’s North Slope oil industry ÓäÊ>VÀià £ÈÊ>VÀià £ÓÊ>VÀià ÈÊ>VÀià makes a pretty good place to look. ÀˆÃˆÌi -ˆâi Technical innovations such as highly deviat- (ALASKA) INC. BP EXPLORATION £ä]äää¿ ed directional drilling and high-resolution xäÓ >VÀià Ó]ä£ä >VÀià £n]ä™È >VÀià ÎÓ]£Çä >VÀià seismic data acquisition have not only ­°än õ “ˆiî ­Î°£ õ “ˆiî ­Ón°Î õ “ˆiî ­xä°Î õ “ˆiî improved business efficiency,they have -ÕLÃÕÀv>Vi also limited the environmental impact of a Àˆ>Li MILE MILES MILES MILES massive industrial operation in a sensitive
Ài> Arctic setting. “«ÀœÛi“i˜Ìà ˆ˜ `Àˆˆ˜} ÌiV ˜œœ}Þ œ˜ Ì i œÀÌ -œ«i œÛiÀ Ì i «>ÃÌ Îä Þi>Àà >Ûi È}˜ˆvˆV>˜ÌÞ Back in the 1970s, the huge Prudhoe Ài`ÕVi` Ì i ÃÕÀv>Vi vœœÌ«Àˆ˜Ì Ü ˆi iÝ«>˜`ˆ˜} Ì i ÃÕLÃÕÀv>Vi `Àˆ>Li >Ài>] >à à œÜ˜ ˆ˜ Ì iÃi ˆÕÃÌÀ>̈œ˜Ã° Bay field was designed as a series of gravel pads, from which wells spread out like Improved drilling and drilling rig technologies have dramatically reduced the required surface footprint deep tree roots tapping the oil reservoir for North Slope drilling. thousands of feet below the surface of the tundra. But the drill rigs in use at the time drove the need for a relatively large num- “They brought those rigs up here and required relatively widely spaced surface ber of pads. dug big reserve pits and made holes in the wellheads in large well pads. Drilling waste In the early days, when an Arctic oil ground the old way,”Eggemeyer said. was dumped into manmade ponds called industry hadn’t yet developed, people But a drive for efficiency and the need reserve pits at the sides of the pads.And drilled just like they did in the Lower 48, to access ever more elusive pieces of the limitations on the amount of deviation Jerome Eggemeyer, engineering team lead oil reservoirs led to fundamental changes in from the vertical that a well could drill for ConocoPhillips, told Petroleum News. the whole approach to drilling on the 30 Strong: Celebrating three decades of oil production from Alaska’s North Slope 29

North Slope. designs with cantilevered drilling platforms access from a single well pad, while at the “When you look at the original develop- enabled well heads to be packed more same time reducing the required well pad ment plan and what folks thought was closely together on a drilling pad, thus area.According to BP a 20-acre well pad in going to happen, it changed pretty dramati- reducing the area of gravel pad needed to 1970 could access about 502 acres of reser- cally and that change was facilitated in a be able to drill a given number of wells. voir at a depth of 10,000 feet; nowadays a large way by drilling advances and the “The evolution of the rig design helped pad of just six acres can access about applications … that enabled us to become us decrease the pad size … but it also 32,000 acres of reservoir at the same more efficient and increase the recoverabil- increased the efficiency of the rig moves to depth. ity rates,”Gary Christman, director of Alaska where you can get more wells drilled in a The Alpine and Badami fields demon- drilling and wells for BP Exploration year,”Randy Thomas, Greater Kuparuk Area strate this phenomenon, with wells access- (Alaska), said. drilling team lead, told Petroleum News. ing complete oil reservoirs from minimal- Coiled tubing drilling techniques such sized pads — just two pads in the case of Increased well deviations as directionally drilled sidetracks were pio- Alpine and one at Badami. The invention of mud motors to drive neered on the North Slope and involved Another North Slope-invented tech- drill bits around bends in well bores and the use of a mud-motor powered drill bit nique in which well cuttings are ground the later development of rotary steerable and continuous small diameter tubing, down and injected into a dedicated waste technology enabled ever increasing rather than a conventional rotating drill disposal well has eliminated the need for amounts of well deviation — the bottom string assembled from multiple lengths of reserve pits, Christman said.That has fur- hole horizontal displacement from the well rigid drill pipe.The coiled tubing technique ther reduced the surface impact of drilling head maxed out at a distance of about the enables drillers to punch a sidetrack well operations. depth of the well in the 1960s, Eggemeyer into new segments of an oil reservoir from And drill rigs in the North Slope fields said. But the ratio of the bottom hole dis- the bore of an existing well. now use electrical power from the North placement to the well depth then That dramatically reduces drilling costs. Slope electrical grid, rather than using their increased steadily to reach five to one or But it also reduces the need for new sur- own diesel power.That has significantly more today.And the introduction of hori- face wellheads and the associated need for reduced diesel exhaust emissions on the zontal drilling in the 1980s enabled wells an additional area of well pad. slope. to undulate their way through under- “The North Slope is almost exclusively ground reservoir rock at horizontal dis- Reduced footprint high line power,”Eggemeyer said. tances of many thousands of feet from a All of these drilling developments have Ultra extended reach drilling, with hori- surface well head. together led to a progressive increase in zontal displacements in excess of perhaps At the same time more compact drill rig the subsurface rock area that drillers can see FOOTPRINT page 31 30 30 Strong: Celebrating three decades of oil production from Alaska’s North Slope 30 Strong: Celebrating three decades of oil production from Alaska’s North Slope 31 continued from page 29 And an ice road that also completely disap- seen a greatly increased emphasis on pears during the summer typically provides safety during drilling operations, FOOTPRINT access to an exploration drilling site. Eggemeyer said. Drilling equipment has 40,000 feet, is taking the whole concept of In addition, state-of-the-art 3-D seismic become safer and the rigs now have directional drilling to a new paradigm. BP survey techniques have revolutionized the safer and more comfortable working has pioneered the technique at its Wytch search for oil and gas prospects and spaces than in earlier days on the slope, Farm oil field on the south coast of England reduced the risk of drilling a dry explo- he said. and now plans to use the technique to ration well.That reduced risk translates to “Safety and environmental is a priority develop the Liberty oil field in the Beaufort the need for fewer exploration wells, at the rig site,”Terry Lucht, manager, Sea. Michael Faust, offshore exploration manag- drilling and wells, for ConocoPhillips The use of ultra extended-reach drilling er for ConocoPhillips Alaska,told Alaska, said.“We model our drilling oper- at Liberty will enable field development Petroleum News. ations around how to do it safely and be and production without the need to con- environmentally friendly, and still accom- Improved safety struct an offshore gravel island, Christman plish what we want to do. … As an said. Instead, BP plans to make a relatively The period since the 1970s has also industry we’ve made huge strides, I small extension to an existing gravel island think.” ◆ at the Endicott field for the Liberty devel- opment.

Exploration drilling When it comes to exploration, the past 30 years have seen a progression to drilling techniques that involve virtually no envi- ronmental impact. Nowadays a lone well- head in the midst of pristine tundra will likely be the only visible remnant of a sus- pended or abandoned exploration well. No one now uses gravel pads for drilling in untouched tundra — an ice pad that melts in the summer, leaving no trace, provides the platform for an exploration drilling rig. 32 30 Strong: Celebrating three decades of oil production from Alaska’s North Slope ALAN BAILEY

A geoscience team in BP’s Anchorage HIVE facility using special eye glasses to view subsurface data in three dimensions. Computer tech revolutionizes seismic Better data resolution, high-tech processing create collaborative approach to subsurface

By ALAN BAILEY Petroleum News. The signals from the geophones are ind back 30 years in the seismic computer processed and plotted. The seismic process industry,and you’d probably have W Massive data volumes seen an expert geophysicist hud- A seismic survey involves sending dled with a bunch of colored pencils over sound waves from a surface vibrator or, The vast amount of data from a seismic a long sheet of paper covered with the offshore, from an array of air guns into the survey used to place severe limitations on squiggly plots of seismic traces.The inter- subsurface rocks.The sound waves how many recordings, or channels, could preter would mark up his or her ideas on bounce off the boundaries between differ- be made from a single sound source shot. how those squiggles represented under- ent types of rock strata and devices called But rapidly evolving computer and record- ground geologic structures, before hand- geophones on the surface detect the ing technology over the past few decades ing off the interpreted plot to, say,a geolo- resulting echoes. has enabled an exponential increase in the gist as an authoritative assessment of what The echoes appear as peaks in plots of number of channels that a seismic survey lay under the ground. the sound signals received at a geophone. can gather — data are now recorded on Those days are long gone.A quantum And by laying side by side the plots from small computer disk drives, rather than on leap in the amount of detailed information an array of geophones, it is possible to use roomfuls of magnetic tape reels, while that geoscientists and others have been those echo “peaks”to pick out the images modern high-power computers can orga- able to glean from the seismic data has of subsurface rock structures. nize and process the data very rapidly. revolutionized seismic interpretation. To minimize unwanted noise that can In 1977 you might have had 200 chan- “The days of having a seismic inter- obliterate the echoes, surveyors shoot nels if you were lucky but nowadays a sur- preter sit at his workstation in a cubicle multiple recordings for the same survey vey typically involves around 10,000 chan- and just basically do his interpretation and point, using sound sources and geophones nels, Jon Anderson, chief geophysicist, hand it off to someone — that type of located over a range of different offsets exploration and land for ConocoPhillips thing just isn’t done any more because from that point.Adding together the Alaska, told Petroleum News. you really need to be working in an inte- results of the multiple recordings has the The vast increase in the number of grated fashion with everyone,”Tom Walsh, effect of canceling out random noise channels has enabled the distances principal partner and manager of while enhancing the coherent signals between geophones to be reduced and Petrotechnical Resources of Alaska,told from the echoes. the resolution of the images of the subsur- 30 Strong: Celebrating three decades of oil production from Alaska’s North Slope 33 face to be greatly increased — the effect mapping geologic structures but only had “We want to make sure that we drill is a bit like increasing the pixel density in a horizontal resolution of perhaps 400 to the most economic target that we can a digital camera. 500 feet.A 3-D survey in a field such as find,”Konkler said. That improved resolution has resulted, Prudhoe Bay now typically involves thou- The most recent stage of evolution in for example, in an ability to resolve small sands of geophones, resulting in a resolu- seismic technology involves what is geologic faults that can cause significant tion as small as 55 by 55 feet, Konkler termed 4-D surveying, in which a 3-D sur- disruption to the reservoirs of oil fields — said. vey is conducted periodically in the same knowing the fault locations assists with “In doing that we found that we were oil field. By finding subtle differences precision well planning and improved able to pinpoint our faults a lot better, between the data from one survey to the reservoir modeling. understand what faults might be there … next, interpreters can try to glean informa- “That’s been a great success story for and which ones aren’t,”Konkler said. tion about the movement of oil, gas and North Slope fields which are fairly well And with well spacings becoming ever water through a field reservoir. shattered by faults,”Walsh said. shorter in a mature field such as Prudhoe The frequency with which 3-D surveys Bay,3-D seismic data have become critical are done to form a 4-D survey depends on 2-D, 3-D, 4-D in determining where the remaining oil is the speed of migration of fluids through The increase in the number of seismic located. see SEISMIC EVOLUTION page 34 channels recorded during a survey has also helped in the development of a tech- nique known as 3-D surveying. In a traditional survey,known as a 2-D survey,seismic signals are triggered and the corresponding geophone recordings made along a single line.The data collect- ed then results in a two dimensional image of the subsurface below the line of the survey.Multiple 2-D surveys along lines in different directions across a region then give a picture of the subsurface geol- ogy. In a 3-D survey,the seismic sound sources and geophones are placed in a surface grid, rather than along a line.The resulting data enables a three-dimensional image of the subsurface to be produced. It’s a bit like the difference between a CAT scan and a regular X-ray,Michael Faust, offshore exploration manager for ConocoPhillips Alaska, told Petroleum News. “Now you can see a three-dimensional image and you can rotate it around and slice through it in any direction and really see what’s going on,”Faust said. Jon Konkler, senior development geo- physicist for BP Exploration (Alaska), said that the use of 3-D seismic started as a technique to assist with oilfield develop- ment, rather than for oil and gas explo- ration. The pioneering use of 3-D seismic on Alaska’s North Slope dated back to 1978, when a 3-D survey was first used to image the Prudhoe Bay gas cap, Konkler said. Since that time 3-D seismic has been shot at least once in every field on the slope and in some fields there have been three or four surveys of this type. And, as in other types of seismic sur- vey,the spatial resolution has continuously improved over time, as geophone spacings have shrunk. Early 3-D surveys proved beneficial in 34 30 Strong: Celebrating three decades of oil production from Alaska’s North Slope continued from page 33 raw sound data from the seismic survey 4-D interpretation, because you have to can be converted into inferred rock prop- have a geophysicist to understand what’s SEISMIC EVOLUTION erties such as the rock density or the making the signal change; and you have to the reservoir — in a mature field such as sound velocity in the rock — interpreters have your reservoir engineer and your Prudhoe Bay a 3-D survey might be car- can then link those rock properties back petroleum engineer, and your driller some- ried out every three to five years, but sur- to similar properties that are measured in times, and your geologist, to talk about the veys might be done more frequently in a wells in the area of a survey,Walsh said. geology,the production history,etc.” newer field, Konkler said. Those linkages to well data, combined And as data interpretation becomes But 4-D surveying is very much in its with sophisticated computer processing more multi-disciplinary,experts within infancy as a technique that could make a and display,now enable interpreters to each discipline tend to need some level of major impact on oilfield development. use seismic data to determine much more understanding of the other disciplines. “The North Slope is one of those about the subsurface geology than just the “As geophysicists we have to learn a lot places where we’ve started investigating, basic structure of the rock strata. of things outside of geophysics,”Konkler does it work?” Konkler said.“We’ve got a Computer displays can overlay differ- said.“We have to learn about reservoir couple of places where we’ve overlain ent types of seismic data, well data and engineering.We always have to under- successive surveys and we’re in the petroleum engineering data in composite stand and be able to know geologically process of evaluating can we see the fluid plots that enable new insights into the that our interpretation makes sense.We movements and, if we can … how do we data.And data depicted in three dimen- have to understand petrophysics to under- use that.” sions can be rotated and tilted, so that stand what the (well) logs are telling us, people can assess whether faults and versus what we think is in the reservoir.” Improved processing other geologic interpretations appear to A team of specialists now often uses a As well as enabling the collection of make sense, Konkler said. purpose-built room to meet and discuss vast amounts of data, modern computer And this ability to simultaneously view how to interpret data. Simultaneous or technology has opened the door to a several different types of data has driven overlaid computer displays of seismic, whole new world of seismic data process- the need for teams of different specialists well and geologic data, coupled with inter- ing and display. to work collaboratively on seismic inter- active interpretation software, facilitate People can now evaluate workstation pretations. the discussions and enable the interpreta- displays of many different attributes of the “Four-D doesn’t just stand for the tions to be captured as the discussions data, including the sound wave ampli- fourth dimension in time; it stands for the progress. tudes, signal coherence, signal frequency — at least — four disciplines in takes to BP uses rooms that it calls “collabora- and signal phase,Anderson said.And the interpret that data,”Konkler said.“You tive visualization environments,”or need a team of different disciplines to do COVEs. Communication links between 30 Strong: Celebrating three decades of oil production from Alaska’s North Slope 35

COVEs at different BP sites, where the reservoir channels opened up a world of explo- such as Anchorage and are and where the high-quality ration that was not available Houston, enable specialists reservoir is.” 30 years ago. In fact the use of across different sites to assess 3-D seismic has significantly the same data collaboratively, Still use 2-D improved the success rate for Konkler said. 30 Strong Not that 2-D seismic has exploration wells.The average BP also has a facility known exploration well success rate What if we could flush more oil disappeared from exploration as the “highly interactive visual- 20 years ago was 10 percent, out of a reservoir by reducing programs.The use of 2-D seis- ization environment,”or HIVE, Faust said. the salt content of seawater? mic is much cheaper than 3-D in which a team can view and “With the advent of 3-D We may soon be able to, thanks seismic when it comes to sur- manipulate large three-dimen- to low salinity enhanced oil veying large areas of territory. data that jumped to almost 50 sional images of subsurface recovery experiments under So, companies tend to shoot 2- percent,”Faust said.“So sud- data. way at the Endicott oil field. To D seismic survey over relative- denly you were drilling far learn more, see page 80. ly wide areas, and then use 3- fewer wells to find the same Exploration D seismic to home in on spe- amount of oil.” Traditional 2-D seismic sur- using seismic data,”Walsh said. cific prospects, Faust said. “Obviously we’re very veying 30 years ago was the “That whole NPR-A area is But the ability of high-reso- dependent on 3-D seismic on primary exploration tech- now something that people lution, 3-D techniques, cou- the slope,”Walsh said.“Pretty nique, used to find large under- are using very sophisticated pled with modern visualiza- much everything that is ground structures that might tools to do their interpreta- tion techniques, to pinpoint prospective is now shot with ◆ trap oil and gas. tions. … We’re not just looking drilling targets really has 3-D seismic data.” “We used to just look for for bumps any more.We are big trapping structures, big looking for those stratigraphic major features that were easy traps.And to find those you to see on half-a-dozen seismic have to use these more sophis- lines,”Faust said. ticated tools.” But success with 3-D seis- Walsh also cited the Tarn mic in oilfield development field as an example of a situa- led to the subsequent use of 3- tion where high-resolution 3-D D techniques in exploration. surveying proved critical to And the use of high-resolution exploration success — after 3-D seismic exploration has drilling several unsuccessful really come into its own on wells, ConocoPhillips used 3-D the North Slope, where many seismic to find the Tarn reser- of the major structures have voir,Walsh said. been drilled and companies “The 3-D seismic of Tarn is now tend to focus on the fascinating in what it tells you search for small stratigraphic about the architecture of that traps. reservoir,”Walsh said.“It really “Alpine is a great example dramatically shows exactly of very significant leveraging 36 30 Strong: Celebrating three decades of oil production from Alaska’s North Slope Can seismic detect oil and gas? Direct hydrocarbon identification has progressed; still possible to drill a duster

By ALAN BAILEY rilling a wildcat exploration well has always been a risky proposition.And D even drilling a well within a known SCHOLL DAVID oil field involves some level of uncertainty about what is under the ground. But advances in seismic surveying and data processing over the past few decades have refined the identification of what geophysi- cists call “direct hydrocarbon indicators” to a point where that drilling risk may at least be reduced, given an appropriate geologic situation. In a seismic survey,sound waves from a sound source partially reflect off bound- aries between different underground stra- ta, to form echoes that are detected at the surface by receivers called geophones. Those echoes provide information about the subsurface geology,including the loca- tions of potential oil and gas traps. But it’s long been known that oil and gas occupying rock pores in an oilfield reservoir affect the physical properties of the rock in a way that could alter those sound echoes and thus provide direct evi- phenomenon such as a bright spot, this contrast simply swamps the subtle dence of subsurface oil and gas pools. type of indicator suggests but does not acoustic contrasts caused by the presence Detects gas prove the existence of subsurface hydro- of hydrocarbons,Tom Walsh, principal part- carbons. ner and manager of Petrotechnical In particular, a quite modest amount of And things become much more difficult Resources of Alaska,told Petroleum News. natural gas inside a rock will significantly when trying to use seismic data to detect Walsh thinks that the hydrocarbon reduce the velocity of sound passing oil. Oil has a much lower acoustic contrast detection techniques will prove more valu- through the rock.That velocity reduction with rock than does gas.And, to make able in the younger and shallower can increase the acoustic contrast between things even more tricky,there’s quite a low Brookian horizons that have become an the gas-bearing rock and the adjacent rock acoustic contrast between oil and water, exploration focus in the past few years. formations.And the increased contrast can thus making these two liquids difficult to The difference between the acoustic prop- in turn cause an abnormally high ampli- distinguish. erties of shales and sands is not as great in tude seismic reflection, giving rise to what When analyzing exploration seismic the Brookian as it is in the older rocks; so geophysicists refer to as a “bright spot” in a data people have a much better chance of any change in fluid properties will likely seismic section. saying whether there’s gas or a liquid have an impact,Walsh said. The relatively low velocity of sound underground, rather than oil versus water, through the gas-bearing rock also causes Michael Faust, offshore exploration manag- AVO strata underneath that rock to appear er for ConocoPhillips Alaska,explained. However, a modern seismic technique deeper underground than they actually Over the years, increased seismic reso- known as amplitude variation with offset, are.That effect results in an apparent lution and an improved ability to extract or AVO, has seen some use in Alaska for down-warping of the lower strata in a seis- unwanted noise from seismic data have delineating subsurface oil and gas reser- mic section, something that geophysicists improved geophysicists’ ability to locate voirs. call “push-down.” possible hydrocarbon indicating anomalies AVO is a bi-product of the way in which For example, a near-vertical column of in the seismic data. But in Alaska,the high a seismic survey involves recording under- pushed down seismic reflections often acoustic contrast between reservoir rocks ground sound reflections using sound indicates the presence of a gas chimney,a and the surrounding rock formations in sources and geophone sound detectors in vertical zone in which natural gas bubbles the relatively old, deeply buried reservoirs a series of increasing offsets from a single upwards through the strata from a source of fields such as Prudhoe Bay and Kuparuk survey point. Seismic surveyors record the that is deep underground. has severely limited the use of hydrocar- data from different offsets so that they can Because, however, there can be more bon detection techniques — that high add the data together.This addition tends than one possible explanation for a seismic 30 Strong: Celebrating three decades of oil production from Alaska’s North Slope 37 to remove random noise while As a technique, 4-D seismic veying is still in its infancy and gas industry,government and enhancing coherent signals is still relatively young, has yet to be fully proven to university gas hydrate research from underground sound although results so far show work, Jon Konkler, senior devel- program on the slope. Gas reflections. promise. opment geophysicist for BP hydrate consists of a white However, geophysicists have “It’s going to be huge as far Exploration (Alaska) told crystalline substance that con- discovered that by examining as economics goes, because Petroleum News. centrates natural gas by trap- how the amplitudes of the sig- then you’re looking for “The North Slope is one of ping methane molecules inside nals from a single subsurface unswept oil, changes in gas those places where we’ve start- a lattice of water molecules at reflection point vary with caps, watching waterflood ed investigating, does it work.” certain pressures and tempera- those increasing recording off- movements,”Jon Anderson, Konkler said.“… We’ve got a tures. sets, it is possible to obtain chief geophysicist, exploration couple of places where we’ve The seismic detection of gas insights into the subsurface and land for ConocoPhillips, overlain successive surveys and hydrates works in a similar geology.In fact, surveyors now told Petroleum News. we’re in the process of evaluat- manner to that of natural gas, tend to use larger geophone Because changes over time ing — can we see the fluid in that the hydrates tend to offsets than they used to, to in the seismic signals can result movements and, if we can, how cause amplitude anomalies in enable this type of AVO analy- from a variety of causes, such do we use that?” the seismic signals. However, sis. as the chemical alteration of 4-D surveys have been done gas hydrate has a relatively And, as with other aspects the rocks or subsurface pres- in both the Prudhoe Bay and high sound velocity,as of modern seismic analysis, sure changes, the linking of the Kuparuk fields,Anderson said. opposed to the low velocity of interpreters can view comput- seismic data to field reservoir Konkler sees the use of 4-D gas. So, the presence of er graphics of the AVO data, to data forms a critical compo- surveys as a “game changer” in hydrates tends to pull up the gain subtle insights into the nent of 4-D analysis,Anderson the use of seismic data, with seismic reflections, rather than underground geology. said. But given that linkage, it is the possibility of assessing fluid push them down. “The difference between possible to use 4-D seismic to saturation volumes rather than A gas hydrate stratigraphic what you see on the close test predictions that reservoir just structure volumes in a field test well at Milne Point on the receivers and the far receivers engineers make about reservoir reservoir. North Slope in February 2007, … changes with the type of fluid movements in response “This really is a different drilled by BP as part of the gas fluid you have in the ground to field production. way of looking at things,” hydrate research program, veri- and the type of rock present,” “That’s the beauty of 4-D,” Konkler said. fied the effectiveness of seis- Faust said. Anderson said.“You know that mic gas hydrate detection tech- Walsh said that AVO analysis the fluids are there and you Gas hydrates niques. essentially enables an assess- know they’re moving and you Although people are far And Walsh sees the poten- ment of the porosity of under- integrate that with all the reser- from determining whether the tial for increasing use of this ground rocks. For example, ana- voir information.” vast deposits of gas hydrates type of seismic direct detection lysts might perform an AVO Detecting fluid movements that underlie parts of the North technique in Alaska for detect- analysis on an unproven sec- using 4-D surveying has proved Slope can ever form a viable ing shallow gas deposits. tion of a known field pay zone, particularly successful in off- source of natural gas, the use of “We’re looking shallower to test for adequate porosity shore oil fields, where surface seismic techniques to directly and shallower and how to and thus reduce the risk level conditions remain relatively detect the hydrates is proving directly detect these hydrates associated with reservoir devel- constant from one survey to to be one of the particularly and coalbed methane opment. the next. But onshore 4-D sur- useful outcomes of a multi-year deposits,”Walsh said. ◆ 4-D seismic Another technique with the potential to detect under- ground hydrocarbons, at least in the context of an opera- tional oil field, is known as 4-D seismic.This technique involves shooting several 3-D seismic surveys over the same area over a time period of per- haps several years (a 3-D sur- vey is a type of survey that results in a three-dimensional image of the subsurface geolo- gy). Changes in seismic signals from one survey to the next can provide insights into the movement of fluids such as oil and gas within the field reser- voir. 38 30 Strong: Celebrating three decades of oil production from Alaska’s North Slope COURTESY OF THE ALASKA DEPARTMENTS OF FISH AND GAME AND NATURAL RESOURCES AND NATURAL AND GAME OF FISH ALASKA DEPARTMENTS THE OF COURTESY

Alaska state biologists have monitored this rehabilitated gravel mine since it was converted to fish habitat in 1986. An experimental population of less than 100 Arctic grayling was established in the pond in 1989. In 2002, biologists estimated numbers of Arctic grayling inhabiting the pond at more than 1,000 fish. Gravel use has technical challenges Oil industry, regulators join forces on slope, convert mines into fish, waterfowl habitat

By ROSE RAGSDALE ly 10,000 acres. faced a learning curve in road-grading mong the most visible and enduring That may sound like a lot, but it’s actu- technology. signs of the oil industry’s presence ally a fraction of 1 percent of the entire The gravel, initially mined from the A on the North Slope are the gravel 15 million-acre central North Slope and bottom of riverbeds, was rounded rock roads, pads and airstrips scattered across less than 3 percent of the operating oil that did not compact well and over time, the tundra.While these piles of pulver- fields, said Bill Streever, environmental loosely compacted gravel would fall ized rock from ancient rivers appear to studies leader for BP Exploration (Alaska) apart, creating cracks and fissures in the be as ordinary at the gravel roads and Inc. roads, according Jim Weeks, a top ARCO structures crisscrossing other populated Put in perspective, gravel infrastruc- executive on the North Slope in the areas of Alaska, they actually have ture on the North Slope covers roughly 1970s and 1980s. evolved and challenged the oil industry twice the acreage occupied by Atlanta One innovative ARCO employee for the past 30 years. International Airport. Moreover, these thought the roads would compact and Gravel is abundant on the North pads, roads and airstrips are scattered hold their shape better if the gravel was Slope. Industry officials say the entire across an expanse the size of West more angular,Weeks said in a recent region is underlain by about 2,000 feet of Virginia. interview. frozen gravel and sand once you get In the 1970s, gravel seemed to be the “So we bought a gravel crusher, below 18 inches of organic soils, lichens, answer for building and maintaining oil crushed the native gravel and no more sedges and various Arctic grasses. field facilities in a frozen land of harsh problems,”Weeks recalled. No one knows how much gravel has weather and harsher conditions. Riverbed gravel a concern been mined on the North Slope, but edu- But gravel, abundant and benign, still cated guesses put the amount in excess presented technical challenges to North More questions about gravel use arose of 40 million cubic yards, covering rough- Slope oil field operators. in the 1980s. ARCO Alaska Inc., for example, soon 30 Strong: Celebrating three decades of oil production from Alaska’s North Slope 39

Regulators became concerned about brought new challenges when all of the the impact of gravel mining in riverbeds gravel was removed from a pit. on Arctic fish populations even though BP’s Streever said DNR biologists, then the actual excavation occurred in winter. a part of the Alaska Department of Fish “It soon became obvious that there and Game, hit upon the “clever idea” of was a hydrological impact to rivers from converting the gravel pits into additional this practice,”said Bill Morris, a biologist fish habitat. with the Division of Habitat Restoration Today, the oil industry partners with of the Alaska Department of Natural state biologists to do just that. Resources.“During breakup, isolated “We had figured out the basics by pools would be left behind in gravel- 2000,”Morris said.“One of the things that scraped areas, creating a problem with turned out to be fairly important is how fish entrapment.” close to the shore a gravel mine site is. If Morris said the industry’s extensive it’s too close, it backfills with seawater use of water taken from deep pools in and becomes useless as fish habitat. the rivers in winter to build ice roads “We also figured out that if you put and pads also had a potentially harmful the gravel mine near a river, chances are effect on fish over-wintering habitat, and very good that a lot of fish will find the could even result in fish kills. CRAIG GEORGE,WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT OF SLOPE BOROUGH DEPARTMENT NORTH pit once it is rehabilitated. In those pits Fish habitat is extremely limited in the located a great distance from a river or Arctic, especially in winter where tem- Biologist Bill Morris says the rehabilitated gravel creek, the wait likely will be longer,”he peratures typically drop to minus 60 mines on Alaska’s North Slope are a win-win for said. Fahrenheit and up to six feet of water in the environment. Still, the wait can be worth it. most rivers, lakes and ponds freezes taking water from the rivers in winter One gravel pit in the Kuparuk River solid. and started using intake screens when field took more than 20 years for fish to In summer and winter, the industry they pumped out water in summer.These find it.“Broad whitefish now use the pit also encountered problems with actually changes reduced hazards to fish signifi- as winter habitat, and to a lesser extent, sucking fish out of the water with water cantly, Morris said. other species of whitefish use it also,” and gravel, Morris said. Morris said. To avoid these potential environmen- Mines become fish habitat In all, eight gravel mines have been tal hazards, the oil companies stopped Land-based gravel mining, meanwhile, see GRAVEL page 40 40 30 Strong: Celebrating three decades of oil production from Alaska’s North Slope

continued from page 39 GRAVEL rehabilitated and connected to stream channels on the North Slope. Of the larg- ADF&G/ALASKA DNR er older sites, Morris said a majority have been rehabilitated for fish habitat. He said some of the larger sites that are not feasible for fish will be reclaimed eventually for waterfowl habitat. State regulators plan to build islands within them for waterfowl nesting areas far enough from shore to deter predators such as Arctic foxes. DNR biologists also figured out that getting the oil field contractors to con- tour the sides of a mine to create shallow shelves on the sides of the pit after gravel mining ends at a site improves the quali- ty of the resulting fish habitat. Locator map of gravel mine sites that have been converted into fish and waterfowl habitat. Ideally, the pits-turned-fish-ponds the winter for ice road and pad construc- lion-barrel offshore Liberty field, for exam- range from 25-30 feet up to 60 feet deep tion is hardly missed,”Morris said. ple, is being developed from an existing and in total area from 15-20 acres to well Having the rehabilitated gravel mines satellite development pad at the Endicott over 100 acres. allows even more fresh water to be field “that is being augmented with a little “The big thing for fish is deepwater stored over the summer, he added. more gravel.” habitat,”Morris said.“In the Arctic, freez- Today, rehabilitation happens concur- “We’re eliminating need for a new sep- ing limits over-wintering habitat.There is rently with the gravel mining.The arate production facility,albeit a small one very limited liquid water on the slope in approach was successful when gravel like at Northstar,”Beaudo said.“We’ll also winter.” was mined to build both the Northstar be able to eliminate a subsea pipeline and More sources of water and Badami fields, officials say. drill ostensibly from onshore at a distance “The Northstar gravel pit near the of eight miles.” The gravel mines-turned-ponds also Lower Kuparuk River was designed to Streever said BP also won’t need a grav- provide the industry with water in sum- mesh with the river so you wouldn’t el road.“Prior to going to extended reach mer for remote camps and for keeping know it was there, and that’s actually the drilling at Liberty,the project would have down dust on the roads. In winter, they case,”Morris said. required a gravel road,”he said. help greatly with ice road and ice pad The operators are also picking up grav- construction. Less gravel mining needed el. “It’s a win-win for the environment,” Meanwhile, a trend nationwide toward “We have a program where we go out Morris said. minimizing industry’s impact on the envi- to old abandoned drill pads, pick up the ronment has gravel and rehabilitate the sites by doing brought other things like planting native Arctic grasses,” changes to gravel Streever said. use on the North If the reclaimed gravel is contaminated, Slope. In 30 years, the operator follows regulatory guidelines ADF&G/ALASKA DNR the industry has suc- to dispose of it. But if the gravel is clean, ceeded in reducing the company uses it in a new location. the amount of tun- So far, BP has reclaimed gravel from old dra its operations exploration sites and three airstrips west affect by more than of the Kuparuk River. two-thirds. “We’ve also picked up parts of produc- “With drilling tion pads and a man camp,”Streever said. pads now about 20 “In a couple of cases, we’ve also picked A broad whitefish caught by state biologists in fish habitat created from a percent of the size up gravel berms around the old reserve gravel mine on the North Slope. they were in the pits that we had for mud and cuttings in 1970s and direction- the 1970s. The ponds are able to provide ample al drilling enabling industry to produce “In a way,what we’re doing with the water for industry uses because of the more oil from fewer pads, less gravel is gravel mines is an extension of this idea low density of fish populations on the needed,”Streever said. that you minimize your footprint and slope. BP spokesman Daren Beaudo said the where you can’t minimize your footprint, “When spring breakup comes, ponds next evolution in oil field design will you look for ways to restore the area and lakes on the North Slope fill almost require even less gravel.The new 120 mil- once you’re done,”he added. ◆ instantaneously, so water removed during 30 Strong: Celebrating three decades of oil production from Alaska’s North Slope 41 42 30 Strong: Celebrating three decades of oil production from Alaska’s North Slope COURTESY OF BP EXPLORATION (ALASKA) INC. OF BP EXPLORATION COURTESY

The drilling waste dilemma Hardrock mining technology adapted for modern grind-and-inject disposal

By ROSE RAGSDALE Only about 5,000 oil and gas wells have approach to drilling waste disposal. hen oil and gas explorers con- been drilled at 605 sites in Alaska. Underground disposal solution W verged on the North Slope in the Compare that with more than 220,000 1950s and 1960s, they brought wells in Louisiana and 500,000-plus The idea of underground disposal of industry practices from the Lower 48. active wells in Texas, according to DEC. drilling solids surfaced. But how could These customs included constructing Alaska laws, in fact, still allow opera- operators get chunks of rock and other berm-enclosed pits beside new wells for tors to build reserve pits for drilling solids efficiently below ground? disposal of discarded rock, mud and waste. But a single reserve pit can cover Down-hole disposal of drilling waste, other solids that came out of the ground several acres, marring the landscape in a after all, wasn’t a new idea.A few opera- during the drilling process. way that many people find objectionable. tors, in fact, were injecting water pro- By the 1980s, these “reserve” pits not State regulations also require companies duced from oil and gas drilling as early as only had become eyesores dotting the to monitor water quality near reserve 1940.They started by disposing of pro- tundra, they also could melt underlying pits for a number of years, and DEC holds duced liquids in depleted wells. But permafrost and threaten to leak. operators responsible for pollution at the when petroleum production increased in The Alaska Department of sites indefinitely. adjacent wells, operators quickly recog- Environmental Conservation began to Thus,ARCO Alaska Inc., a subsidiary of nized the benefits of this practice.The regulate disposal of drilling wastes and to Atlantic Richfield Inc., was ready to talk prospect of increased oil recovery issue permits for use of reserve pits. when an environmental group sued the encouraged them to favor disposing of It’s not that drilling waste is a major company in the late 1980s over the use produced water down hole, and by 1985, hazard per se. Oil and gas drilling in of reserve pits on the North Slope. operators nationwide were injecting pro- Alaska is actually minuscule, compared ARCO decided to clean up its reserve duced water into wells nine out of 10 with such activity in some other states. pits, thereby paving the way for a new times. 30 Strong: Celebrating three decades of oil production from Alaska’s North Slope 43

Injecting solids down hole on the North Slope, however, was another mat- ter.After some trial and error, including a pilot project in 1988,ARCO drilling engi- neers realized they could solve the prob- lem economically, with a little help from hardrock mining technology. “We bought a ball mill and took drill cuttings, which are mostly rock, and crushed them to slurry them with water,” recalled Jim Weeks, then a top manager for ARCO Alaska on the North Slope.“It was an old mining technology applied in a different way.” It wasn’t long before the reserve pits became yesterday’s news. CONSERVATION OF ENVIRONMENTAL ALASKA DEPARTMENT COURTESY “The whole concept of reserve pits next to the wells went away,”Bob Blankenberg, solid waste program direc- tor for DEC, said in June.“Solid waste dis- posal evolved from putting it in the Reserve pits on production pads like this one built in 1978 were an integral part of drilling waste man- reserve pits to taking it to a central land- agement practices on the North Slope until the 1980s. fill to applying grind-and-inject technolo- gy, which is used today.” at DS4-19 on March 31, 1995. By 2000, the way we manage muds and cuttings,” North Slope operators soon began some 1.2 million cubic yards of solid ARCO’s Harry Engel told participants in a cleaning out their in-field reserve pits. material — mostly cuttings — had been technologies conference in 2000.“G&I is They took mud and cuttings to a large- pumped down hole on the slope.That a prime example of utilizing technology scale grind and injection plant near well amount in gravel would build a 3-feet- to improve an environmental manage- Drill Site 4-19 in the Eastern Operating thick-by-27-feet-wide road about 75 ment system.This permanent and envi- Area of the giant Prudhoe Bay oil field. miles, or from Anchorage to Willow. ronmentally sound disposal method iso- DS4-19 was a disposal well, drilled and lates wastes, eliminates subsequent dis- completed as a produced water injection Changing an industry posal and greatly reduces the surface well in September 1989. Today, most oilfield waste — drilling space required for drilling operations,” By 1994, refined grind-and-inject tech- mud, drill cuttings, and produced brine Engel said. nology had enabled both Prudhoe Bay water — generated on the North Slope is The elimination of reserve pits operators, BP Exploration (Alaska) Inc. injected down hole. Produced brine onshore has decreased habitat destruc- and ARCO to achieve “zero discharge” of water has never been a problem, but tion and eliminated the possibility of drilling wastes, eliminating the need for drilling mud and drill cuttings require reserve pit overflow as a potential source reserve pits. special handling. of tundra and surface water contamina- ARCO put its grind-and-inject plant “Grind-and-inject technology changed tion. Offshore, the probable benefits are into operation and slurry injection began see DRILLING WASTE page 44 44 30 Strong: Celebrating three decades of oil production from Alaska’s North Slope continued from page 43 Thor Cutler, environmental scientist for the U.S. DRILLING WASTE Environmental Protection not easy to specifically define, Agency’s Region 10, said wide- but directionally, the potential spread use of this preferred for contamination of near- alternative, especially at newer shore waters has been elimi- slope fields like Alpine and nated, according to engineers Badami, has eliminated the at the Alaska Oil and Gas need to transport waste materi- Conservation Commission. al across the tundra, which fur- ther reduces the industry’s What is grind & inject? footprint on the surface. When a well is spudded, a “It provides the opportunity drilling mud is constructed by for handling the material in a mixing a bentonite clay with better way,”Cutler said. COURTESY ALASKA DEPARTMENT OF ENVIRONMENTAL CONSERVATION OF ENVIRONMENTAL ALASKA DEPARTMENT COURTESY water to produce a viscous, Figures compiled by AOGCC North Slope operators agreed to clean up and rehabilitate reserve pits where thixotropic solution that is show that down-hole disposal they once deposited drilling waste. With the help of industry and state biol- of drilling waste may be the capable of performing several ogists, this reserve pit is well on its way to being reclaimed by the tundra. functions essential to drilling most cost-competitive alterna- the well, including mud the laden mud circulates to the sur- removed. tive. Of viable options available, well bore, overbalance the for- face, it passes over 80-mesh Drill cuttings, or the solid grind-and-inject disposal is cer- mation pressure and remove shaker screens to remove material that results from tainly the most attractive, cost- cuttings from the well bore. coarse material.To maintain the drilling wells, are recovered at ing about $100 per cubic yard As the formation is drilled, mud at a pumpable viscosity, the surface through the use of and offering the prospect of rock material is ground up, demanders, desilters, and cen- the shakers, demanders, desil- being a permanent solution. some into large particles and trifuges can be used to remove ters, and centrifuges.This mate- Other options include below- some pulverized and suspend- finer particles. In addition, the rial is run through a ball mill to ground encapsulation, which ed in the mud system.The mud is diluted, or “watered grind it until it is fine enough also costs about $100 a cubic process raises the viscosity to a back” to reduce its viscosity. to be pumped into the forma- yard; and shipment to the point where the mud is not This increases the volume of tion without plugging the Lower 48 at an estimated cost easily pumped.As the rock- mud and some of it must be openings. of $600 to $1,000 per barrel. Neither of these options can Best of available options offer a guarantee of being per- Thanks to grind-and-inject manent solutions,AOGCC said. technology and the under- Though down-hole disposal ground disposal of the resulting is a “very expensive alternative” slurry in wells ranging from in that underground injection 2,000 to 9,000 feet deep, the wells cost several million dol- operators have been able to lars to drill and require substan- clean up nearly all of the tial sums for ongoing opera- reserve pits on the North tion, Cutler said the technology, Slope. Some 513 of 605 reserve in the long run, has improved pits statewide have been the net outcome and may lead cleaned out, while another 17 to net savings. — mostly on the North Slope “Not only is well spacing in — are expected to be closed newer fields such as Northstar within the next year, according and Alpine much smaller than to DEC. in the past, we’ve seen signifi- Another 57, mostly North cant reduction in the footprint Slope sites, are slated for future of drilling pads, and permanent corrective action, and all inac- roads and river crossings are no tive reserve pits owned by BP, longer needed for land trans- ConocoPhillips Alaska Inc. and port of waste being hauled to a ExxonMobil Production Co. are central site for disposal,”he currently expected to be added. closed by 2014, Blankenberg North Slope fields, in fact, said. have shrunk to one-fifth of Grind-and-inject technology their former size during the and underground disposal also past 30 years, due in part to are used for drilling waste from the elimination of reserve pits recent exploration and devel- and the advent of grind and opment activities. inject technology. ◆ 30 Strong: Celebrating three decades of oil production from Alaska’s North Slope 45 With DRA pipeline less of a drag Chemical additive enables Alyeska Pipeline Service Co. to achieve huge cost savings

By ROSE RAGSDALE ver three decades,Alyeska Pipeline O Service Co. has operated the trans- Alaska oil pipeline with the assis- tance of numerous technologies. None, perhaps, is better known than a clever innovation cooked up in the chemical CO. PIPELINE SERVICE ALYESKA laboratories of Atlantic Richfield Co. called drag reducing agent, or DRA. A long-chained hydrocarbon polymer, DRA has the consistency of a gooey, clinging gel resembling rubber cement. Technically, DRA is a poly-alpha-olefin, or non-saturated carbon with very large, long- chain molecules com- posed of hydrogen and carbon atoms. It proved to be a particularly important development for the A worker dips a hand into a batch of drag reducing agent, or DRA. The chemical additive has proven to pipeline, which was CO. PIPELINE SERVICE ALYESKA be an important boon to operators of the trans-Alaska oil pipeline. built to handle 1.5 mil- 12, with three pumps each and installed million bpd of oil and eliminated the lion barrels per day of Mike Malvick is a 3rd pump at pump stations 1, 3, 4, 8 need for eight additional operating crude, according Jim operations engi- neering supervisor and 10, as throughput climbed to 1.2 mil- pumps and gas turbines,”he said. Weeks, a senior ARCO at Alyeska Pipeline lion bpd. “I’d say a rough estimate of the cost manager in Alaska in Service Co. Phase 3 was intended to add a fourth savings in facility construction from DRA the 1980s. pump at pump stations 1, 3, 4, 6, 8, 9, 10 would be approximately $300 million, in In the late 1980s when oil flow and 12, and to bring on line pump sta- 1977 dollars,”Malvick said.“In today’s through the pipeline climbed to a rate of tions 2, 5, 7 and 11, with four pumps dollars, that would be in excess of $1 bil- more than 2 million bpd,Weeks said each to accommodate a boost in oil flow lion.” injections of DRA made the higher to 2 million bpd. throughput possible without additional Before Phase 3 could be implemented, Operators master DRA construction. testing of DRA proved it to be a viable Despite its efficacy, DRA required a “It gave TAPS a 30 percent increase in alternative to mechanical horsepower in significant learning curve at Alyeska. capacity without adding pipes or pumps the trans-Alaska oil pipeline system.As a Engineers and technicians conducted an or anything else,”Weeks said in a recent result, Phase 3 never happened. Instead, ongoing series of tests through the years interview. pump stations 2 and 7 were built with to assess the substance’s range of capabil- But the story of Alyeska’s love affair just two pumps each, and the company ities. with DRA dates back to 1979, two years shelved plans for building pump stations Malvick said the original gel-like con- after startup. 5 and 11. sistency, which had an active ingredient DRA was first injected into the That fourth (spare) pump was never that required it to be dissolved in pipeline on July 1, 1979. installed at any of the pump stations, but kerosene or diesel, was very difficult to The pipeline was initially designed to the stations’ gas turbines were modified use. Handling it was akin to manipulating move 2 million bpd of oil, using 12 pump to produce more power, up to the equiv- an extremely sticky batch of melting stations. Each pump station could accom- alent of 18,000 horses. mozzarella cheese. modate four mainline pumps, with three Even without the extra pumps and “If you dipped up a handful of DRA, it operating and one spare. Each of the pump stations originally envisioned, DRA would come away with a strand still pumps was to be driven by a 14,500- enabled the pipeline to handle peak oil attached to the batch that would get horsepower gas turbine. flow of 2.15 million bpd. Maximum thinner and thinner but would never The pump stations were designed to capacity without DRA was slightly more break,”Malvick said.“If you spilled it, the be built in phases. Phase 1 included than 1.4 million bpd, according to Mike clean-up tools of choice were a shovel building pump stations 1, 3, 4, 8 and 10, Malvick, operations engineering supervi- and a long pair of shears.” with two pumps each, which allowed for sor. This feature made DRA ideal for pumping 600,000 bpd of crude. “DRA use, when injected at strategic Phase 2 added pump stations 6, 9 and locations, allowed 28 pumps to pump 2.1 see DRAG page 46 46 30 Strong: Celebrating three decades of oil production from Alaska’s North Slope continued from page 45 “We’ve not seen management.We took the same con- quality degradation in cept and went in a different direction,” DRAG the crude oil,”Malvick Malvick said. smoothing away turbulence as crude said.“DRA is also PATRICK JUDY As North Slope petroleum produc- and natural gas liquids rushed through injected into some tion declined,Alyeska found that using the pipe. pipelines for refined DRA was more economical than run- One problem with DRA was it would products in the Lower ning existing pump stations.The discov- lose its desirable properties once it 48 with no detrimen- ery led to shutdowns of Pump Station 8 passed through a pump station,Weeks tal impact.” in 1995, Pump Station 10 in 1996, JIM WEEKS said. Another key devel- Pump Station 6 in 1997 and Pump Thus, batches of the agent had to be opment was the suc- Station 12 in 2003 or 2004, Malvick injected in the pipeline at regular inter- cess DRA manufacturers had in convert- said. vals to keep the oil ing the substance into Today,Alyeska is still using DRA, flowing smoothly. slurry products that can though now it figures prominently in But exactly how does be more easily transport- the company’s strategic reconfiguration DRA work? ed, injected and cleaned process, which called for electrifying Malvick says the tur- up than the original gel. the pipeline’s remaining pump stations. bulent flow of crude in “The slurries Injection of DRA is allowing Alyeska to the pipeline chews up 30 Strong appeared in the late shut down or scale back power usage energy, and DRA acts Could we save money by 1990s, and they’ve taken at pump stations 7 and 9. like a spring or shock keeping equipment at a remote the market by storm. So “Depending on the cost of electrici- absorber, reducing tur- exploration site on the North they don’t make the gel ty, we may choose to inject DRA rather bulence and thus, the Slope all summer? anymore,”Malvick said. than run our pumps so hard and save energy needed to move Oil companies can cut their costs on electricity consumption,”Malvick New use for DRA the oil to Valdez. by using special insulation, said. One factor in without damaging the tundra. Alyeska used DRA to The decision, like earlier moves to Alyeska’s willingness to Turn to page 66 to learn more. aid crude throughput in use DRA, hinges on a simple equation. continue using DRA was the 1980s and 1990s, but “When DRA is cheaper than fuel its lack of lasting effects on Alaska in 1995, the company drafted the sub- plus station maintenance plus person- North Slope petroleum liquids flowing stance into a different service. nel, then we shut down the pump sta- through the pipeline. “We started using it for horsepower tion and inject DRA,”he said. ◆ 30 Strong: Celebrating three decades of oil production from Alaska’s North Slope 47 Seeking systems for all seasons After 30 years of upgrades, Alyeska brings telecommunications, computer systems to peak

By ROSE RAGSDALE dvances in telecommunications and information technology have brought A numerous improvements to the com- puter system that controls the trans-Alaska oil pipeline and the network that facilitates

and reinforces its safe operation. CO. PIPELINE SERVICE ALYESKA Moving at a slower but perhaps, surer pace than others in the industry,the 800- mile pipeline’s computer systems are final- ly coming into their own, demonstrating capabilities pipeline operator Alyeska Pipeline Service Co. could only dream about 30 years ago. “Originally,when the pipeline was being constructed, there really wasn’t any communications infrastructure,”said Mike Joynor, vice president of oil movements at Alyeska. Joynor leads a team of controllers and pro- grammers who have marched the pipeline through three decades Alyeska plans to move its operations control center, shown here, to Anchorage by early next year. of changes.The pipeline’s owners hired and the fiber optic system, we now have tem that originally controlled the pipeline. AT&T to build a dual a communication infrastructure that are After startup with a Xerox-based system in microwave system for independent of each other,” Joynor said. 1977,Alyeska switched to a faster main- Mike Joynor is vice The upgrades have given the pipeline frame system in 1985 and moved again 20 telecommunications in president of oil the early 1970s. Erected movements at ground-based and microwave-based years later to the new-generation User along the pipeline’s Alyeska Pipeline telecommunications systems and enabled Configurable Open System marketed by Service Co. right of way from Pump Alyeska to develop primary,secondary and Kansas-based Control Systems Station 1 to Valdez, it was an analog system tertiary communication links.Alyeska now International. based on serial communications. has analog and digital microwave, fiber The first two supervisory control and “Back then, it was modern for the tech- optic and digital satellite telecommunica- data acquisition systems were essentially nology of the day,”Joynor said. tions available. mainframe computers that relied on serial, Nearly 25 years later in the late 1990s, The three different levels of communi- or point-to-point communications, but the Alyeska took another telecommunications cations circuitry to the pump stations one installed in 2005 is a network-based company up on an offer to build a fiber means that if any one system fails,Alyeska distributed system. optics system along the pipeline right of will retain its ability to see what is happen- SCADA is an industry recognized way and connect it with a sub-sea fiber ing on the pipeline. In addition, the satel- acronym meaning “Supervisory Control cable then under construction from the lite link has proven to be very useful main- And Data Acquisition system.” Seattle area through Prince William Sound taining communications at high elevations Before the latest update, all of the to Valdez and Anchorage. such as Atigun Pass. SCADA system’s logic that controlled and “We moved to the fiber system in 2002, “Very seldom does anyone get in a posi- protected the pipeline resided in the main- but we kept the analog microwave system tion to have the best of all the telecommu- frame.This made the pipeline susceptible as part of our voice communications radio nications worlds,”Joynor said.“It gives us to power outages, said Paul Liddell, a com- system, or mobile communications sys- our 99.995 percent up time, which is the puter systems engineer and supervisor of tem,”Joynor said. availability required by regulators for the Alyeska’s SCADA system. Since then,Alyeska has worked with pipeline. Outside of the military,that’s sig- If the pipeline lost power, the controller AT&T and GCI Inc. to fast forward its nificantly higher than any other place you working in our operations control center, telecommunication infrastructure. can find.” or OCC, couldn’t take steps necessary to ensure a safe shutdown, Liddell said. “AT&T went in and upgraded their Upgrades enhance control entire analog microwave system to digital With the new distributed system, technology, making it fully redundant. In 30 years,Alyeska has undertaken Alyeska has pushed the logic out as close With the two digital microwave systems three full upgrades of the computer sys- see SYSTEMS page 48 48 30 Strong: Celebrating three decades of oil production from Alaska’s North Slope continued from page 47 this year of a new PLC-based Safety point, but we’re not there yet,”Liddell said. Integrity Pressure Protection System, or At the OCC, meanwhile,Alyeska is also SYSTEMS SIPPS, that Alyeska launched to provide examining each and every alarm that to the field as possible,“such that if we additional safeguards for running the comes in to the controller and deciding lose communications, the pipeline can still pipeline. whether the alarms need to be presented safe itself out. (The system) can monitor Since February when the SIPPS station to the controller, Liddell said.“Obviously for adverse conditions, and it can monitor came on line, systems analysts have with one person sitting there trying to for loss of communications with the OCC focused on fine-tuning it to essentially control the pipeline, being hit with more and can bring the pipeline down safely,” watch pipeline operations for mistakes and than 1,000 alarms in a work shift is a bit Liddell said. mishaps. much to handle.” The new system also allows Liddell said SIPPS is a primary Analysts are scrutinizing each alarm to Alyeska computer analysts to example of how the company has determine its source, function, required troubleshoot and monitor it. pushed the protective logic capa- response and whether it is even necessary. “We can actually go into the bilities of the new computer sys- A new type of software developed by PAS programming logic that controls tem out into the field. Each pump of Seabrook,Texas, is helping with the processes out in the pump sta- station will have a SIPPS node automatic alarm analysis.The software tions and see what’s going on,” when the work is completed, intercepts all the alarms coming in and the said Liddell. hopefully by 2009, and the nodes operator’s actions going out.Then it sug- The technology is similar to will be able to communicate with gests ways to make the process more effi- that used in the aircraft industry each other and exchange informa- cient. for diagnostic analysis of airplane Paul Liddell is a tion continuously. The plan to move the OCC to the computer systems SIPPS will also monitor commu- Government Hill offices of AT&T in engines while they are still flying engineer and in the sky. supervisor of the nications with other nodes on the Anchorage is moving apace. Joynor said Liddell said telecommunica- SCADA system at same network and its own com- the new facility should be finished by tions is used to access the system Alyeska Pipeline munications with the OCC, and year’s end and the OCC relocated in 2008. Service Co. and once inside, analysts use the take the appropriate action if a “This is another area where technology computer system’s distributive nature “to problem occurs in those areas, advances have helped us,”Liddell said. peer around and see what’s going on.” Liddell said. “With the old point-to-point communica- Though installation of the SCADA sys- Suppose a valve closes without receiv- tions with a centralized mainframe, trying tem is essentially complete,Alyeska pro- ing a command from the human controller to coordinate this move would have been grammers are up to their elbows in addi- at the OCC. SIPPS will respond by auto- very difficult. tional upgrades and reorganization matically shutting down pump stations “With the new SCADA system, all we designed to make the pipeline’s operation upstream from the closed valve, Liddell have to do is establish another point of even safer and more efficient.This includes said. control in Anchorage and we can run the moving the OCC to Anchorage. If SIPPS loses communications with the pipeline in parallel or from one control OCC or with other SIPPS nodes, it also will point at a time,”he explained.“It really SIPPS started up this year automatically shut down the pipeline. makes the transition over to Anchorage The multiyear, multimillion-dollar “SIPPS is programmed to react if certain much, much easier.” predetermined situations occur. It’s not process is called strategic reconfiguration. Off-the-shelf technology Part of this picture was startup earlier artificial intelligence.AI implies a certain level of learning.We’d like to get to that Alyeska made a conscious decision to 30 Strong: Celebrating three decades of oil production from Alaska’s North Slope 49 purchase off-the-shelf technology for the But these are not your standard PCs, area,”Joynor said.“So if we had disrup- latest SCADA system and with its latest Joynor cautioned.“They have a significant tions, say a fiber problem in Prince telecommunications upgrades and ser- number of coprocessors in them, and they William Sound, we’re connected in vices. cost $10,000 to $15,000 each,”he said. Anchorage going north over the moun- “With the second generation SCADA tains and we can intercept and restore system, we owned all the source code to New capabilities, versatility communications. it,”Liddell said.“When you buy UCOS, it’s What does all this technological muscle “We always make sure we have at least essentially a toolbox.You can build your- bring to Alyeska? two and maybe three or four routes. self a house with that toolbox.“Before Flexibility and reliability,mostly. Having three communications routes will 2005, we had to build everything from “Once the OCC is in Anchorage, we’ll be our standard when we’re done,”he scratch. It took a very high skill set to have routing through Glennallen to said.“The underlying goal is for TAPS’ maintain, and quite honestly,a lot of us are Fairbanks that connects us to the system SCADA system to have the highest reliabil- getting a little long in the tooth and look- that way and we will have routing that ity that we can achieve with current tech- ing toward retirement.”(UCOS, an comes from Valdez to Anchorage through nology.We never can be 100 percent, but acronym for user configurable open sys- our alternate control center in the Palmer we can be close.” ◆ tem, is a complete control system solu- tion. In layman terms UCOS is a set of soft- ware tools that allows a user to build a SCADA system that ‘out of the box’ can communicate using a large number of standard process control protocols – i.e. messages — over a wide variety of com- ES I munication infrastructure, such as Ethernet, point-to-point, etc.) Alyeska no longer needs to hire engi- neers who are specialists in programming to run the new system.“Our people can use the toolbox to configure the changes that they need,”Liddell said. One reason Alyeska made the switch to off-the-shelf computer technology was that back in the ’70s the hottest things in computers were languages like FORTRAN and COBOL, etc. “Most everybody who really under- stood those computer programs are in their 60s and 70s today,”Joynor said.“It’s about using computer software that is industry standard.You can bring in support personnel to keep your in-house people trained. But the farther you depart from commercial- or industrial-grade technology that’s available, the more you are building a system that requires specialists.You may have only one or two specialists, and if anything happens, you may have a gap in your ability to support your systems.That’s why we try to stay with commercial or industrially available technology.” Alyeska’s leak detection program also got a boost from advancements in person- al computing technology. The complexities of hydraulic model- ing of pipelines leads to some very diffi- cult equations, and Alyeska engineers used to submit a problem to the mainframe computer and wait all day to get an answer. With the newest PCs, the engineers can solve equations within minutes, Liddell said.“So our leak detection system is now based on PC technology.” 50 30 Strong: Celebrating three decades of oil production from Alaska’s North Slope ALYESKA PIPELINE SERVICE CO. PIPELINE SERVICE ALYESKA

A versatile fast-water booming tool, the BoomVane can be used to both recover and deflect spills in fast-moving rivers and streams. Alyeska Pipeline Service Co. has added the completely self-trimming and versatile technology to its oil spill response inventory. Better mousetraps for inland spills Alyeska Pipeline Service Co. scored big with recent advances in emergency preparedness

By ROSE RAGSDALE “When we find a new application, we innovative.” lyeska Pipeline Service Co., operator often purchase a model and try it,”said Wes Part of the impetus for this initiative is of the trans-Alaska oil pipeline, has Willson, manager of Alyeska’s emergency the company’s need to fulfill the require- A preparedness and compliance department. ments of numerous regulations that govern assembled a diverse collection of tools to aid in its ongoing efforts to Willson’s people also have taken to every aspect of the pipeline system’s opera- improve its emergency response capabili- interacting more with SERVS, the marine tion. ties. side of emergency response at the compa- “We have a four-volume set of state Employees are essentially charged with ny. requirements, so a lot of time and effort is seeking out better mousetraps. Not only do “We are training together and sharing put into compliance,”Willson said. they troll the Internet and industry publica- ideas,”he said.“In past years, we’d hear peo- Device helps deploying boom tions, but several employees attend major ple saying a technology would work for emergency response conferences, such as marine applications or for the pipeline Sometimes Alyeska employees strike the International Oil Spill Conference, only.These days, we are seeing a lot more gold with this buy-and-try approach. every year. people taking these ideas and being very see INLAND SPILLS page 52 ALYESKA PIPELINE SERVICE CO. PIPELINE SERVICE ALYESKA 30 Strong: Celebrating three decades of oil production from Alaska’s North Slope 51 52 30 Strong: Celebrating three decades of oil production from Alaska’s North Slope continued from page 50 INLAND SPILLS That was the case with the “BoomVane,” a device that dramatically improved the company’s response procedures on fast-

moving inland rivers and streams during CO. PIPELINE SERVICE ALYESKA the past six or seven years,Willson said. “It does so many things for us.We can deploy our boom now without a boat. If we are limited whenever we are at a remote site, we can fly a crew in and they can start deploying boom before you can get a boat there,”he said. One of the biggest challenges facing Alyeska’s emergency response crews is get- ting a good anchor position for deploying boom in a rapid river current. “There is a lot of stress and weight when that current is hitting against a long stretch of boom,”he said.“The most chal- lenging thing is having enough weight and anchor to hold the boom in place.The way the BoomVane is designed, you can anchor on land.You don’t have to do it in the mid- dle of a river. So it offers advantages in deploying boom in faster currents, but also Two workers can deploy this 100-foot, 68-pound water dam in five to 10 minutes to do the work of a in holding the boom in faster currents.” sandbag dam that would take at least two hours to erect with at least three times the manpower. How does the BoomVane work? Alyeska Pipeline Service Co. purchased the technology from a French manufacturer called Megasecur. Imagine a kite, but instead of flying it in the air, you would put it in a river. It flies up You have to be skilled to do it, but if you We were pretty impressed with it,”Willson the river. It has a float attached and it pulls put the BoomVane out in the ocean and said. a boom behind it.Alyeska can deploy boom you anchor it properly to one boat and to But one problem that Willson’s crews to collect oil or other substances spilled in the boom, it will take the place of a second had with the device was its size.Too large rushing water using the device. boat.” at 6 feet tall to work in shallower stretches The BoomVane is lightweight and He said the BoomVane will swim along- of a river, the BoomVane needed a redesign portable. Designed in Sweden by ORC, it side the one boat, deploying boom in the for the pipeline. was originally developed for use in the same U-shaped pattern. “We worked with the company’s engi- ocean. The technology caught the eye of neers to make an inland river BoomVane “What they were attempting to do was Alyeska employees who work for the com- and to get the design down to the smallest a typical marine application in open water pany’s tanker escort service. size that they believed would still work. So with boom using two boats moving side- “They were using it to a certain extent. our BoomVanes are about 2 1/2 to 3 feet by-side, working in parallel with each tow- We happened to be working with them tall.We still need some water for them to ing part of the same set of boom in a U- and we wondered how it would work on a work, but they are clearly able to go into shaped configuration,”Willson said.“The river current.We borrowed one of the much shallower waters than the original BoomVane can eliminate that second boat. BoomVanes and put it on the Yukon River. models,”he said. Better, quieter small boats Other technologies with recent advances that have gotten the nod at Alyeska include air and jet boats. “The big problem until recently with air boats was that they were designed for use in the Florida Everglades and the Louisiana marshes and not for the fast-moving rivers of Alaska,”Willson said. Another problem with air boats is the loud noise they make in operation. “One of the new things to come out is a counter-rotating prop. Instead of one pro- peller, they now have two and they rotate in opposite directions. It provides a lot 30 Strong: Celebrating three decades of oil production from Alaska’s North Slope 53 greater power for a smaller engine and lighter weight. Plus, it’s also much easier on the ears of the operator and passersby,” he explained. Recently,Alyeska began 30 Strong

working with several Alaska CO. PIPELINE SERVICE ALYESKA vendors who now routinely Can we move a massive drilling custom build air boats for the rig across remote stretches of the North Slope to drill an explo- company.These vessels have ration well without damaging more safety features, and their the tundra? We can, by using hulls are designed for use on ice roads and ice pads. To Alaska rivers and streams. learn more, see page 63. Another big advance in tech- nology in Alaska was the devel- ing oil.” opment of the “tunnel hull”in An extreme shallow jet boat in Alyeska Pipeline Service Co.’s inland emer- The water dam is especially the jet boat industry. gency response fleet. effective in braided rivers “Originally,there was just company called Megasecur that “It’s one of the neatest where oil coming downstream one design, but now there is an come in various lengths and things we’ve found,”Willson can be diverted into a dry chan- extreme shallow-water design,” heights. Lightweight said.“We’re learning how to use nel where it can more easily be Willson said. polyurethane rolls with a flap, it.We’ve found that in some sit- collected. The new tunnel-hull jet two sides and a middle point, uations where the water is “A lot of times before, that boats have brought versatility water dams function like moving too rapidly or a stream would have required shovels or to Alyeska’s small boat fleet. instant sandbags. is not straight enough, we don’t maybe even heavy equipment,” Before, a huge difference in A common technique in have to dam a whole river, we Willson said.“We’ve trained on where air boats and jet boats containing an oil spill is to can just deploy the water dam them so that, assuming it is a could go in the water made it block a culvert or build a tem- straight into river and it creates shallow river, like the Sag River, difficult for the company to porary dam using sandbags, a small eddy at that location. It we are able to direct the flow manage its fleet efficiently. according to Willson. slows down the river and the pretty precisely and pretty “A jet boat couldn’t compete But constructing a dam of water pools up noticeably.Then quickly to where we want it to at all with an air boat,”Willson sandbags takes a lot of labor we have a much better location go.” ◆ said.“But what we are finding and can take several hours, to actually be effective collect- with these tunnel hulls is they depending how many people are not quite as good as an air are working to built it so it can boat, but they are pretty close. hold and pull water in a way When we do our operations in that allows oil to be collected some of these environments, it at the location, he explained. has allowed us to interchange By contrast, two workers crews and interchange equip- can pull a 50-foot water dam ment much more easily than across an area to be blocked before.” and effectively dam up a river Today,Alyeska maintains a in five minutes. fleet of 12-14 air boats and 10 tunnel-hull jet boats.As the company purchases new equip- ment, it has replaced older models at a rate of four or five a year.At that rate,Willson esti- mated the company’s entire small boat fleet will be newer models in two more years.

Sandbags no more Another nifty technology tucked away in Alyeska’s emer- gency response inventory is one originally used as a flood- ing protection device. Called a “water dam,”the products are manufactured by several com- panies.Alyeska chose to pur- chase models made by a French 54 30 Strong: Celebrating three decades of oil production from Alaska’s North Slope ALYESKA PIPELINE SERVICE CO. PIPELINE SERVICE ALYESKA

Alyeska Pipeline Service Co. teamed with Fairbanks firms, Mustard Engineering and Holaday-Parks metal shop to design and build the HC 320 Hydraulic Clamp after the Milepost 400 bullet hole incident in 2001. Once applied to the trans-Alaska oil pipeline as a temporary patch, the clamp can be left in place. This allows Alyeska to deploy multiple clamps, if needed. A tale of two leaks Emergency response quicker, more effective in 23 years between oil spills at Alyeska

By ROSE RAGSDALE some 3,000 barrels were recovered and re- Consider:The ICCS is so effective that n 30 years,Alyeska Pipeline Service Co. injected. Congress passed legislation after Hurricane has only had to respond to oil spill Alyeska’s emergency response to the Katrina, requiring all federal agencies and I emergencies caused by acts of sabotage two incidents, more than two decades departments to adopt the system in against the trans-Alaska oil pipeline. apart, offers compelling evidence that tech- responding to emergencies. The first incident occurred in the Steele nology has improved the company’s capa- “The oil industry and Alaska agencies Creek area less than 25 bilities and performance to respond to are actually leading the charge on this, help- miles north of Fairbanks spills and other sudden events. ing the federal agencies with it,”Willson on Feb. 15, 1978, just said. Effective communications help eight months after Advances in telecommunications also pipeline startup.Vandals One key factor in how technology has helped Alyeska greatly in handling the two planted explosives that changed emergency response at Alyeska is emergencies. blew a hole in the line, the company’s success in using an increas- “During the Steele Creek incident, we causing some 16,000 ingly popular system, said Wes Willson, had no cell phones. Information had to be barrels of crude to spill emergency preparedness and compliance relayed by land.We had no fiber optic before workers were manager at Alyeska. telecommunications link with the pipeline. able to stop the oil flow Wes Willson, emer- Early on but not before the incident in As a result, more decisions and more gency preparedness actions were left with the local group of and make repairs. and compliance 1978,Alyeska adopted the “incident com- The second incident manager at Alyeska mand and control system” used by firefight- responders,”Willson said. occurred 23 years later Pipeline Service Co. ers in battling blazes that flare up every “Where they struggled was when they on Oct. 4, 2001, when an summer in wilderness areas of the West. needed additional resources, whether it intoxicated man fired a rifle at close range, Over the years, the company has found was manpower or equipment,”he said. ripping a bullet hole in the pipeline near ICCS to be very effective in dealing with “Getting that information back to the cen- Milepost 400, about 75 miles north of emergencies.A key advantage:The system tral hub and bringing in the additional Fairbanks. More than 4,500 barrels of oil can expand and contract, as needed, during resources were definitely challenges.” spewed out of the pipeline, and of that in an emergency. By comparison,Alyeska had good com- 30 Strong: Celebrating three decades of oil production from Alaska’s North Slope 55 munications infrastructure available during the Milepost 400 incident. “But even then, it was not as good as what we currently have,”Willson observed. By 2001,Alyeska was able to employ the ICCS and better telecommunications links

to get some 300 people on site within 24 CO. PIPELINE SERVICE ALYESKA hours at Milepost 400 along with a massive amount of pre-staged equipment ready to be deployed. “We had the ability to respond a lot faster,”Willson recalled.

TEAM clamp used in 2001 This 50-foot expandable trailer is equipped with computer workstations, laptops, satellite phones, land- Technological changes also influenced line telephones and a dispatch center with air and ground radios as well as different repeaters. At a cost how the company repaired the leaks. of $500,000 to $700,000, it was created to provide Alyeska Pipeline Service Co. with the best on-scene communications support possible in case of an emergency. “The technology for how we dealt with the Steele Creek incident was a sleeve. That’s a standard practice that we still con- tinue to use at Alyeska. If we have concerns about a dent or corrosion or wall thickness, we will add a sleeve over the spot to effec- tively fix it,”Willson said. But one handicap at Steele Creek was that workers had to wait for the crude spewing out of the pipeline under high pressure to subside before they could cover the hole with the sleeve and weld it into place. During the 2001 incident,Alyeska called on a nifty innovation it had added to its emergency response arsenal a few years earlier. Called a “TEAM clamp,”the device was installed on top of the leaking oil, Willson said. Inspired by off-the-shelf technology used on smaller pipelines, the TEAM clamp was redesigned for the trans-Alaska oil pipeline’s 48-inch girth. “Before the TEAM clamp was invented, no one had even tried to have that applica- tion for such a large-diameter pipeline,” Willson said.“We’ve had mixed success with it, so we’ve planned to use it as a tem- porary patch that allows Alyeska to restart the pipeline and make future repairs.We have better technology that we’ve devel- oped recently.”

‘Pump-around skid’ Back at Milepost 400,Alyeska still had to reduce the pressure of the oil leaking out significantly to apply the TEAM clamp. To do that, technicians brought in “pump-around skids,”basically large pumps that extract oil from one side of a valve and return it to the pipeline on the other side of a valve.These devices helped the compa- ny to quickly lower the internal pressure in the leaking section of pipe and apply the TEAM clamp. see LEAK RESPONSE page 56 56 30 Strong: Celebrating three decades of oil production from Alaska’s North Slope ALYESKA PIPELINE SERVICE CO. PIPELINE SERVICE ALYESKA

The MCP has eight workstations with computers, laptops, satellite phones, regular telephones and a dispatch center with air and ground radios as well as different repeaters. continued from page 55 aggressively sealing a valve, completely upstream from the Since 2001,Alyeska has especially a check valve like leak. changed the design to increase LEAK RESPONSE those used on the pipeline. “We get what we call a ‘leak the pumping rate of the device Originally called “gel-block A gel-block skid comes in by’ or ‘leak through’,”Willson and purchased additional units. skids,”Alyeska purchased the handy when a leak occurs in a said.“In the worse case situa- The company now uses them technology in the early 1990s pipeline and a check valve tion, you would have a spill.We as contingency equipment and because it was one of few tools designed to hold back addition- designed the pipeline so we for valve maintenance, drain- available on the market for al oil from flooding the affected could have valves to minimize downs and shutdowns. section of pipe won’t close the potential for a spill. But if a valve isn’t working properly, Hydraulic clamp best yet you potentially could have an The company also set out to additional volume of oil leak develop more efficient technol- out.” ogy for dealing with such spills. The gel-block skid can inject “We conducted a review a 200-foot-long plug of diesel with our stakeholders’ input gel into the pipeline and seal it from a procedural, safety and so additional oil cannot seep equipment standpoint,”Willson through to a section with a said. leak. After significant investment “At Milepost 400 because of during the past five years, the way that section of the Alyeska has developed a new pipeline is designed and the device and trained personnel to way we injected the gel both use it. upstream and downstream “The piece of technology around the valve, we stumbled we’re proudest of is the HC320 upon the idea of using the Hydraulic Clamp,”Willson said. device to pump the oil around “And what’s so neat about this (the leaking section),”Willson clamp is it was designed and said.“That’s why we now call it built here locally.” the ‘pump-around skid.’” That’s right. Mustard 30 Strong: Celebrating three decades of oil production from Alaska’s North Slope 57

Engineering and Holaday-Parks Inc. metal has worked outstandingly,”he said. nications system at a Pump Station. fabrication shop of Fairbanks worked in One reason for the MCP’s success is its “It gives us the capability, but depend- partnership with Alyeska spill response superior telecommunications, including ing on the location of the incident, we experts to develop the device. satellite uplinks that enable workers to may not be as close to the scene as we The HC320 clamp can quickly seal off a upload and download pictures and large would like,”Willson said. pipeline leak, and depending on the pres- amounts of data quickly. That’s when a third method comes in sure in the affected pipe, actually serve as a “We can display a map drawn in the handy.The MCP has satellite dishes on its temporary repair so Alyeska, under the field through video-teleconference and roof and can work from a satellite feed. right conditions, could restart the pipeline, download it onto a Web site,”Willson said. Instead of using regular phones, the staff Willson said. “All of a sudden, everyone in the room is simply switches over to the satellite The concept for the clamp was based using the same information the folks in the phones. on large excavators used in the logging field have to make decisions about what “We can upload and download data, industry.Those machines have an arm resources need to be applied to the situa- but the satellite is a little slower,”Willson attached that is used to pick up huge logs. tion. It looks like something out of military said.“So we have to be a little more delib- “It has an articulated arm that you can movies” erate in sharing data and making sure we move 360 degrees so you can really manip- prioritize it appropriately. But if the fiber ulate it,”said Willson.“We asked why could- Versatility key to success was out, this unit could still go where it n’t we take that same principle and instead The success of the MCP,which is typi- needs to and function.” of a tool to grab something, make a tool to cally hitched to a semi-tractor trailer to Another reason for the MCP’s success fit on the end of the arm and clamp around travel to the scene of an incident, is due is the core staff of 25 trained profession- something.” in part to the versatility of its telecommu- als who go with it when it rolls.They It took two years to create the proto- nications system. come from the computer systems, envi- type, test it and put it to work.The resulting “Our preference is to tie into the fiber ronment, safety, operations and resources HC320 is smaller, more lightweight and optic line along the pipeline.That gives departments at Alyeska and train regular- maneuverable than the TEAM clamp. It can us 100 percent full capability,”Willson ly for the emergency response work. be used to quickly apply a clamp to a sec- said.“It’s like (being on scene while) sit- “Clearly the biggest benefit is when tion of pipe, lock it in place and move away ting in our office in Fairbanks or these trained people go hand in hand from the pipeline. Anchorage.” with the Mobile Command Post,”Willson “It’s probably our No. 1 choice of how The MCP also can tie into the commu- said. ◆ we would deal with that type of incident,” Willson said.

Mobile communications a hit Another lesson that Alyeska learned from the Milepost 400 incident was that the company would benefit significantly from having a self-sufficient communica- tions system on site. “We had communications but it took a while to set up and we had to tie into the available fiber optic line that goes through the pipeline,”Willson said. In response,Alyeska designed at a cost of $500,000 to $700,000 a “Mobile Command Post,”that is, a 50-foot expand- able trailer equipped and dedicated to pro- viding on-scene command and support for emergency personnel at an incident. The MCP has eight workstations with computers, laptops, satellite phones, regular telephones and a dispatch center with air and ground radios as well as different repeaters. Since the MCP was rolled out,Willson said it has made a measurable difference. Communications problems, previously a constant challenge, rarely crop up now that it is in use. “The incident field task force is talking to the MCP and the MCP is presenting that (information) back to Anchorage or Fairbanks emergency operations centers. It 58 30 Strong: Celebrating three decades of oil production from Alaska’s North Slope BP EXPLORATION (ALASKA) BP EXPLORATION

Proposed ultra extended reach wells at BP’s Liberty field in the Beaufort Sea will break new ground in extreme directional drilling. UERD for offshore development Ultra extended reach drilling enables Liberty offshore development without gravel island

By ALAN BAILEY “Drilling studies support departures of well bore diameter. irectional drilling of wells that deviate 34,000 to 44,000 feet,”BP has said. And at these depths even the weight of far from the vertical has proved a key “Departures beyond 44,000 feet have not pipe used to convey the bit downhole is a D technology in accessing much of the been studied.” challenge for the rig to handle.To lighten North Slope’s vast oil reserves. But drilling Turning or pulling the drill string in the load, aluminum drill pipe may be used to horizontal departures of tens of thou- these exceptionally long well bores will instead of traditional steel drill pipe, sands of feet takes you into the world of require a massive drilling rig.And, having Christman said. ultra extended-reach drilling, a technology established that there is no existing rig “We’ll be doing some field trials with alu- that could, for example, allow some Arctic powerful enough for the job, BP is commis- minum pipe in Prudhoe Bay,”Christman offshore oil fields to be developed from sioning the construction of a purpose-built said. BP also wants to establish a way of re- onshore or nearshore locations. rig — construction is slated to start in 2008 entering the Liberty wells, to enable the use BP has successfully used extended reach with completion planned for the third quar- of sidetrack wells that avoid the need to drilling to develop its Wytch Farm oil field ter of 2009. drill more of the highly expensive extended on the south coast of England, where the “We’re looking at a 2010 timeframe … reach wells than necessary. oilfield facilities lie onshore but a major part for actual drilling (after) going through per- And BP plans to test some of the tech- of the oil reservoir lies under scenic Poole mitting, rig design, engineering,”Gary niques that it hopes to use at Liberty as part Bay — wells with horizontal departures of Christman, BP’s director of Alaska drilling of an extended reach drilling program in 25,000 feet and more tap oil from the and wells, told Petroleum News. the company’s Beaufort Sea Northstar field undersea reservoir without the need for any The new rig for Liberty will be the — the Northstar extended reach drilling offshore infrastructure. largest land rig ever built in the world, and will enable the company to increase the oil the exceptional length of the wells will recovery at that field, Christman said. BP Drill from Endicott require a raft of state-of-the-art technologies started work on its Northstar extended The company hopes to repeat its Wytch such as rotary steerable drilling. reach wells in the winter of 2006-07 but the Farm success at the Liberty field, about 5.5 “It will take all of this technology that company has not yet completed any of the miles offshore under the Beaufort Sea. we’ve developed and exploited in Prudhoe wells. Liberty development plans envisage a 20- Bay and extend it to a new realm,” “The intention is that this winter we will acre expansion to an existing satellite gravel Christman said. finish those Northstar wells, and knowl- edge from those wells will be supporting island at the neighboring Endicott field, to Ingenuity accommodate the Liberty drilling rig and our efforts to be successful in Liberty,” wellheads. Production will go through the Manipulating the drill strings down the Christman said. Endicott facilities and pipeline. extended reach well bores will require But in venturing into as-yet untried But Liberty drilling will likely achieve some ingenuity.For example, the need to extended reach distances at Liberty BP world records for extended reach drilling, use progressively smaller diameter casing as expects the unexpected. with horizontal departures from the well- a well penetrates further through the rock “The key to us is going to be reacting heads of up to 44,000 feet or more. will likely drive the need to use tubing that to problems that we don’t anticipate,” the drillers can expand downhole to the Christman said. ◆ 30 Strong: Celebrating three decades of oil production from Alaska’s North Slope 59 60 30 Strong: Celebrating three decades of oil production from Alaska’s North Slope Airtight seal skins inspire rolligons Traditional Alaska Native knowledge yields secret of technology to California inventor

By ROSE RAGSDALE o explore for and develop petrole- um resources on Alaska’s North T PATRICK JUDY Slope, engineers had to build an infrastructure that would disrupt the region’s permafrost as little as possible. Part of the answer for travel across the fragile tundra is the technology underly- ing the transportation innovation com- monly referred to as rolligons. But the premise for rolligon technolo- gy dates back to the first men to visit the Arctic. The rolligon’s inventor,William Albee got his inspiration while visiting Alaska on a fishing trip in 1950. Albee observed a group of Alaska Natives preparing to remove a heavy wooden boat from the Arctic waters. He wondered how the small, heavily clad men would transport the boat up the muddy bank.The Natives produced and inflated several airtight seal skins and rolled the boat onto them, out of the water and up the bank. Thus was born the concept of the Rolligon low pressure “air bag.”Albee returned to Monterey, Calif., and began to develop the first low-pressure, off-road tire. He also formed the Albee Rolligon Co. to produce vehicles equipped with the low pressure tires. The first tires were smooth and driven by a top roller, another Albee Rolligon innovation.They measured 30 inches in diameter and 40 inches wide.Albee Above, current global positioning technology has Rolligon obtained patents on both the made a big difference in the ability of rolligon oper- wide, low-pressure tire and the top roller ators to navigate in remote areas of the Alaska Arctic drive. fitted with a pivot and steering was Rolligon changes hands accomplished by articulating the frame. But Albee was unable to develop his This 4x4 became the model 4450 Marsh concept into a successful business. He Skeeter. It was lightweight, amphibious, sold the assets of his company to John G. and highly mobile and exhibited a Holland Sr. in 1960. Holland moved the ground-bearing pressure of less than 2 pounds per square inch. business to Houston,Texas, where he RESOURCES OF NATURAL ALASKA DEPARTMENT owned and operated a highway-heavy With the success of the 4450 came construction company. He incorporated Crowley Alaska recorded this startling image of a requests for bigger payload capacity vehi- rolligon driving over the body of a researcher dur- his new assets under the name of ing tests of these unusual vehicles on the North cles. So Rolligon then developed a 6x6 Rolligon Corp. and his two companies Slope in 1970 and 1971. vehicle, Rolligon Model 6650, along with shared an office, warehouse, and yard. a larger 54-inch-by-68-inch tire. Rolligon Corp. built several top roller wet, inclined surfaces. In the late 1960s, Rolligon entered a vehicles; however, it was apparent that Rolligon then vulcanized lugs on a 40- joint venture with the Bechtel Corp. of while the top roller vehicles operated inch-by-50-inch smooth tire, and designed San Francisco to manufacture several well on sand and level, vegetated terrain, a 4x4 vehicle with axles directly driving 12x12 vehicles for use in the new oil they did not perform well on muddy or the tire from the center.The vehicle was fields on the North Slope.The vehicles 30 Strong: Celebrating three decades of oil production from Alaska’s North Slope 61 were designed with the 54-inch-by-68- Rolligon Corp. continues to manufacture inch smooth tires designed to exert low tires for the vehicles. pressure on surfaces, specifically around 3 The name Rolligon actually applies to psi.They had top roller drives rather than PATRICK JUDY a much smaller vehicle used for seismic direct drives and 8x8 tractors with four- work and refers specifically to the tires wheel-powered trailers.Their large, low- on the vehicles. Even though CATCO’s pressure rubber “air bag” tires enabled machines are commonly called Rolligons, them to essentially float across unpacked technically CATCO cannot use that name. snow, summer tundra, sand and marsh- “We call them units or vehicles,” land.The tires help distribute the weight explained Tunks, who came to the North of the vehicle and its payload over a large Slope more than 30 years ago. area, thus minimizing terrain impact. “I came here in ’74,”Tunks says.“There Though they exert higher surface pres- wasn’t much here; a couple of ATCO sure than hovercrafts, rolligons still exert units for the airport terminal.There were relatively low pressure, low enough for very few people, and I don’t remember the U.S. Department of Energy to call any women.The road went from East them an “ultra-low impact vehicle.”Early Dock to the Kuparuk River and stopped. rolligons carried a maximum payload of On the other side it went to Service City, 30 tons and traveled at maximum speeds but it didn’t cross the river.” of about 20 mph, making them ideal for Referred to by some as the carrying small drill rigs and drilling plat- “Neanderthals of the North Slope,” forms. CATCO’s camps are vintage 1970s. Crowley dubbed its specialized vehi- Crowley acts cles CATCOs.The company’s 29 units are Six of the vehicles were delivered to the only ones like them in the world. Alaska in 1968.Another 12 were built in Close-up of part of a drilling rig chained down for They operate virtually the same as they 1974 and the newest ones were built in transport across the tundra did when they first arrived on the North 1980, according to Don Tunks, Crowley ent organization, purchased the North Slope, with two exceptions:The units All-Terrain Corp.’s manager of operations Slope transportation venture in 1975 and have been equipped with cell phones and and maintenance in 2002. still operates the original vehicles on the GPS navigational aids. Crowley Maritime Corp., CATCO’s par- slope today, providing oil field services. see ROLLIGONS page 62 62 30 Strong: Celebrating three decades of oil production from Alaska’s North Slope continued from page 61 ROLLIGONS

Before the advent of rol- PATRICK JUDY ligons, early operators on the North Slope used Cat trains to move supplies and equipment across the tundra.The practice was discontinued because of the detrimental effect the vehicles had on the tundra. In 30 years, Crowley has developed a unique system for transporting cargos and per- sonnel to remote roadless areas that has little if any effect on fragile tundra. Peak Oilfield Services also Unloading part of a drilling rig and a forklift onto a ramp made of ice and snow at a remote location operates the same type of plies; and even construct ice business development for tundra anytime after July 15, vehicle on the North Slope pads in extreme locations and Crowley. Crowley’s rolligons are used today, but its vehicles are conditions. “It’s our company policy predominantly during the win- called Tundra Cats and that the units and their opera- ter season, O’Shea added. Rimpulls. GPS technology aid work tors travel in pairs for safety “From the marine side, we of rolligons reasons, which reflects the A return to track vehicles call them ‘land barges’ because More recently, global posi- company’s ongoing focus on During the past few years, of their large 16-foot platform” tioning technology has made a safety,”O’Shea said. some North Slope contractors said Craig Tornga, former world of difference in the abil- Crowley transports more have taken to using tracked Alaska manager for Crowley. ity of rolligon operators to than 2 million gallons of fuel a equipment for transporting These “land barges” are navigate in remote areas of the year across the tundra by rol- goods and equipment across used to build ice roads; trans- Alaska Arctic, according to ligon, and the company hasn’t the tundra. But the tracked port drill rigs, fuel and sup- Michael O’Shea, director of had a lost time accident in vehicles of today use a track years, he said. made of rubber instead of Crowley recently embarked steel. on a $3 million refurbishment Still, the tracked vehicles program for 10 of its oldest have a much greater impact rolligons in a 20-unit fleet on on the tundra than rolligons, the North Slope. with a higher likelihood of The units are getting new tundra damage, according to engines, transmissions and Peak officials. rear ends as well as frame Also, others are using vehi- modifications.The changes cles with the large tires, but will result in a 33 percent cost instead of a smooth tread and savings in fuel consumption, a roller drive, these have a reduced emissions and higher direct drive and tires with a speeds under certain condi- chevron tread pattern. tions, O’Shea said. This type of tire also has a “These units are the only greater impact on the tundra. ones of their kind in the world “When the vehicle gets that work day to day,”he said. stuck, the wheels start to Crowley’s rolligon fleet spin, which damages the tun- contains four RD105 tractor- dra,”said a Peak official who trailers capable of transporting asked not to identified.“We 45,000-ton payloads; six RD feel this increased use of non- 85s, which are 16-foot-wide rolligon-type vehicles will units with power trailers capa- continue to cause damage to ble of hauling 35,000 tons; the tundra. seven RD 85 pup units with “This lack of environmen- small trailers, also able to han- tal consciousness and short- dle 35,000-ton payloads; and sightedness in continuing to three RD 85 trucks with 17.5- use these vehicles is going to ton capacities. risk the future of remote Permitted to operate on the exploration,”he added. ◆ 30 Strong: Celebrating three decades of oil production from Alaska’s North Slope 63 JUDY PATRICK JUDY

Buiding an ice road by applying water from a water truck A vanishing footprint Use of ice-based infrastructure minimizes impact of winter exploration activity

By ROSE RAGSDALE without leaving behind harsh reminders James Trantham, a project manager for ce roads, winter byways that disap- of their passage, and they cost a fraction ARCO Alaska Inc. pear with breakup in spring, are effi- of their gravel counterparts. “Basically any time a truck went over I cient and indispensable aids to oil and As construction of the trans-Alaska oil it, you had to go back and roll over it gas exploration on the North Slope. pipeline drew to a close in the 1970s, again, because it just kind of ‘squooshed’ These ribbons of frozen water have winter exploration roads made of snow the snow up,”Trantham told participants paved the way for explorers to venture and ice gained popularity on the North in an oil and gas technologies conference into remote areas of the Arctic since the Slope. in 2000. 1950s when the Royal Canadian Ice roads enabled explorers to use the “So it was really high maintenance Mounted Police first fashioned crude same equipment to conduct exploration and probably not as safe a road as we roadways out of snow. development programs that they used on have today,”he added In Alaska, ice roads have successfully gravel year-round, while minimizing the The original North Slope ice road served remote locations in the Arctic, impact of their presence in the Arctic crews consisted of a couple of bed even during winters characterized by environment. trucks with “suck-on” water tanks (tanks minus 70 degree Fahrenheit tempera- that had water pumps combined with Rough riding on early roads tures, 20-foot snowdrifts and limited day- the tank, that could be used for filling the light. But in the 30 years since the late tanks with water), a loader or grader and Early road construction in the 1920s 1970s, ice road and ice pad construction a dozer, according to contractors at Peak featured bulldozing the tundra, but the technology has come a long way.Thanks Oilfield Services Inc. practice proved disastrous.After just one to the growing expertise of operators “The technique was to take snow on season, such a route was impassable and contractors, ice road construction the road route, smooth it down with when the permafrost thawed. evolved from simply packing snow into either a dozer, or a loader with a drag or Pioneer explorers turned to gravel to crude pathways across the tundra to mix- a grader and then to put water on it.This insulate the permafrost and stabilize ing ice, water and snow into surprisingly produced a road that a rig could be roadbeds, airstrips, and drilling pads, but durable thoroughfares that can withstand moved across, but were not necessarily soon found that gravel mining and con- the heaviest loads all winter long. very wide or smooth.The average crew struction are expensive and environmen- Early ice road builders just packed was between 14 and 16 people, half on tally harsh. snow and basically drove on it. days and half on nights,”they said. Oil and gas explorers quickly realized The “ice”road was very rough, built The soils of the North Slope have a with caterpillars and trucks, according to that ice roads could get the job done see ICE ROADS page 64 64 30 Strong: Celebrating three decades of oil production from Alaska’s North Slope continued from page 63 down,”Trantham said.“After awhile we started actually mining ice chips from ICE ROADS lakes to use in ice road construction.” permafrost layer that is frozen from a PATRICK JUDY At the same time, the first insulated depth of about 1,600 feet up to maybe a pads were built at the Leffingwell where foot below the surface.The top portion insulation and boards were placed on the of the permafrost is called the active tundra to support the rig, he recalled. layer, and it thaws in the summer and Later, the insulated foam was moved over refreezes in the winter.When snow is to the KIC No. 1 well within the Arctic dumped on top of the active layer, heat is National Wildlife Refuge, he said. trapped in the top half-foot or so below The addition of delineators in the the tundra. 1980s to mark the sides of ice roads also “So by packing the snow, you remove lessened the environmental impact of the air and actually promote the freezing. exploration on the tundra. Delineators We do that from a rolligon, and then in allow exploration and construction time the trucks come down the middle crews to continue working in all but the of the road and squirt water out to the very worst visibility, and they help to sides and start moving around on the ice keep traffic on the ice roads. Making ice chips for building ice roads road,”Trantham said. Regulation drives ingenuity mat; Regulators set guidelines • All rehabilitation must satisfy the As regulations governing the construc- “In the 1970s, it was pretty evident to DNR commissioner; and tion of ice roads and ice pads became everyone that the slope was a very sensi- • DNR or another applicable land more stringent, operators and contractors tive area, and there were plenty of exam- manager must determine what travel have responded, using technology to ples of tundra damage throughout the openings and closures should be based extend the length of the drilling season slope,”said Leon Lynch, a specialist with on snow cover and frost depth. and to minimize damage to the tundra. the Alaska Department of Natural In the 1970s and 1980s, ice road Regulators monitor the condition of Resources Division of Mining Land and builders started adding more water, espe- the tundra closely and over the years Water. cially close to the drill pads because have shortened drilling seasons as DNR responded by passing regula- there was so much traffic around the warmer weather has shortened North tions giving the slope a special land use pads. Slope winters. designation.As a result, activities such as Later, they began to add more water to The standard that regulators use for off road travel that were generally the roads, and use graders and snow opening the tundra is 12 inches of frost allowed on other state lands require a blowers to maintain the ice roads. and six inches of snow. Opening dates in permit on the North Slope. “In the mid-80s, we actually started general allowed for a six-month winter Among stipulations of the permits: adding ice chips using a machine with a drilling season, but in the last decade, • Ice roads and ice pads must be built big pump that threw water up into the warmer temperatures have shortened the so that they are thick enough to protect air where it turned into snow or ice exploration season to about three and a the vegetative mat; chips (in the subzero temperatures of the half months. • Vehicles must be operated so that 24-hour Arctic nights) and deposited on Explorers responded with proposals there will be no damage to the vegetative the road or pad where we would pack it for pre-packing trails and developing a 30 Strong: Celebrating three decades of oil production from Alaska’s North Slope 65 graduated system of season roads. Both water and snow opening.With such a system, are hauled from lakes to instead of waiting for 12 inch- where roads are being con- es of frost, lighter weight vehi- structed.Average crews num- PATRICK JUDY cles with lower ground pres- ber 24 to 32 people, depend- sure could actually operate on ing on the scale of the pro- six or eight inches of frost. ject, again with half on days That became important for and half on nights. loaders and smaller vehicles To get an early start, opera- used in ice road construction. tors and contractors use rol- Working with regulators, ligons — large vehicles with operators and contractors large, smooth, low pressure refined this system until much tires that have a roller drive of ice road construction rather than a direct drive — occurs prior to the general which regulators have tundra opening.This means approved for travel on the tun- that the sooner the industry dra in both summer and win- gets to work safely, without ter.The rolligons are used to damage to the tundra, the pack down the snow and sooner they can complete place a layer of water on top their projects, and get off the of the tundra. tundra in spring, before breakup becomes a concern, Technology spurs more DNR officials say. improvements On remote projects, where Ice-based technology ice roads cannot link explor- proves its mettle ers with the gravel road sys- “The construction and use tem, all of the ice road equip- of ice roads by the petroleum ment as well as drill rigs and industry provided access into support equipment must be environmentally sensitive hauled to the drill site. Ice road maintenance in NPR-A areas without permanent Originally Cat trains were impact from gravel road con- used, but the practice was dis- struction,”said Scott Guyer, a continued in the 1970s researcher with the Bureau of because of their detrimental Land Management in effect on the tundra. Rolligons Anchorage. or track vehicles with balloon- Based on a study of ice like rubber tracks are now roads and ice pads construc- used to haul most loads across tion, including work done in the tundra. 2001 and 2002 for the Puviaq Early researchers would exploration well, in the north- test the delicate touch of the eastern corner of the National rolligons by lying down on Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, the tundra and allowing opera- BLM concluded in 2003 that tors to drive the huge vehicles “ice roads and pads that sup- over their bodies. port drilling operations, if Recently, rolligon crews built with care, can have no have demonstrated even long-term effects to the fragile greater environmental aware- tundra environment,”accord- ness by carefully monitoring ing to Guyer. their activities on the tundra Today, ice road construc- and taking steps to remove all tion is similar to gravel road signs of their passage, accord- construction in many ways, ing to Sharmon Stambaugh, only it is done with snow or wastewater program manager ice. Dozers and drags pulled for the Alaska Department of behind loaders are no longer Environmental Conservation. used because they damage the Peak, for example, has tundra. Graders and loaders focused on rigorous vehicle combined with on- and off- maintenance to prevent spills road water trucks and haul of hydraulic fluids and other trucks are used to build the substances on the tundra. ◆ 66 30 Strong: Celebrating three decades of oil production from Alaska’s North Slope Insulated ice pads extend season Innovation minimizes environmental impact, shrinks exploration footprint, cuts costs

By ROSE RAGSDALE egulations designed to protect the R fragile Arctic tundra and shorter win- ters have given Alaska North Slope operators both economic and environmen- tal impetus to develop clever ways to extend their drilling seasons. One such innovation is insulating drilling pads to prevent them from thawing (ALASKA) BP EXPLORATION COURTESY during the short Arctic summers.This tech- nology succeeded in extending exploratory drilling seasons as much as 50 percent, and earned recognition from the U.S. Department of Energy as one of the Alaska oil and gas industry’s best practices. BP Exploration (Alaska) used foam-core panels to insulate a drilling pad at Yukon Gold south of the Point Currently,Arctic drilling seasons are Thomson unit. The 400-foot-by-300-foot-by-6-inch ice pad, pictured here while it was under construc- tion, was built in the spring of 1993, covered in plastic sheeting and topped with 600 foam-core panels. restricted to 135-170 days, at best lasting from late November until mid-May. The approach resulted in a potential pad construction made ice pads last for Operators not only must quickly build tem- loss of eight to 10 acres of tundra habitat, multiple seasons. It enabled operators to porary ice roads to drilling sites, they also and should the drilling program end with a build ice pads before a winter drilling sea- are required to construct ice pads, often as dry hole, state regulators said operators son started, and preserve the site through large as an acre. Drilling rigs and the could show no economic benefit from the the summer thaw for re-use the following remote camps that support them rest on lost habitat. winter. these pads. More importantly,the technique gave Drilling crews confine their activities to Shift to ice pads in 1980s the companies up to a two-month head these islands of ice all winter and are care- start on conventional technology.Insulated ful to not stray onto the tundra beyond Operators switched to drilling pads ice pads, in effect, extended the available them. By mid-May,all traces of the rigs, made of ice in the 1980s, recognizing them drilling season to 205 days and effective camps and equipment must be removed to as less costly and environmentally intrusive well operations to 160 days.This enabled non-sensitive areas. than their gravel predecessors. Still, by the drillers to complete at least one explorato- In the 1970s, regulations on the North 1990s, conventional ice pads were no ry well, and sometimes two penetrations in Slope were less strict and the first ice roads longer meeting the needs of operators a single season, operators say. invariably ended at a drill rig resting on a because they melted in spring and had to What’s the allure of single-season com- gravel pad. In very remote locations, a grav- be rebuilt the following winter. pletions? el airstrip also might be nearby. Adding prefabricated insulation to ice Completing a multimillion-dollar 30 Strong: Celebrating three decades of oil production from Alaska’s North Slope 67 exploratory well in one season cuts mobilization costs consid- Petroleum News March 2002 reprint erably,not to mention reduces related environmental effects. It Following is abbreviated text from an article that also shortens the time between appeared in the March 24, 2002, issue of Petroleum News initial investment and return on by Kristen Nelson that investment, and gets valu- Phillips Alaska is planning winter explo- be approximately 245 feet by 265 feet by six able subsurface data to explo- ration drilling next year on some of the far- inches thick. Construction is expected to ration teams sooner than other- thest west leases in the National Petroleum begin in March.The ice pad will be covered wise would be possible. Such Reserve-Alaska.The company has applied to with standard … 4 to 6-inch thick, 25 psi speedy feedback enhances build a 1.5 acre insulated ice pad in order to expanded polystyrene foam insulation.The planning, operators say. keep a drilling rig in the area over the sum- panels weigh about 700 pounds each. mer. The polystyrene panels will be sandwiched DOE cites BP The Puviag insulated pad, according to the between 8-foot by 24-foot sheets of 7/16-inch ice pad success U.S.Army Corps of Engineers, would be west thick oriented strand board. Reinforced poly- When a BP Exploration of Teshekpuk Lake approximately 67 miles ethylene film will be laid under the panels to (Alaska) Inc. engineering feasi- southeast of Barrow in section 35 township prevent them from bonding to the ice pad to bility study indicated that con- 16N range 10W,Umiat Meridian.The Corps ensure easy pick-up. structing an insulated ice pad said no drilling operations are planned for this Exposed panel surfaces will be covered in March 1993 at Yukon Gold site.The rig would be moved to a “nearby win- with a white, opaque surface fabric that is No. 1 on the North Slope ter exploratory drilling site” after tundra travel designed to minimize thermal gain, minimize would significantly extend the is approved for the 2002-2003 winter season. rainwater infiltration to the ice surface and winter drilling season, BP built This prospect is some 45 miles west-north- minimize thermal erosion of the ice pad. a 390-by-280-foot ice pad cov- west of the Trailblazer prospect BP drilled last Standard rig mats will be placed on the ered with nearly 600 wind- year, and, other than development drilling at insulated panels with the drilling rig sitting on resistant insulating panels. the Barrow gas field, will be the farthest west the mats. Ice berms may be constructed to Summer visits confirmed that North Slope drilling in several decades. … divert spring runoff from the pad.The berms the ice beneath the panels Phillips will mobilize a crew … and con- will be about 3 feet high, roughly trapezoidal remained sufficiently frozen. struction equipment by rolligon or other all- in cross-section with an 8-foot wide base and When the panels were disas- terrain vehicles to the site for pad construc- a 4-foot wide top. sembled in October 1993, they tion, the corps said.The drilling rig will be Rope anchors will be used to resist wind had not bonded to the resting moved to the site by rolligon after the pad is uplift forces on the panels not protected by surface, or scattered, and nearly built but before the close of tundra travel this the rig and the site will be monitored every 90 percent were in excellent spring and then moved to a nearby winter two to three weeks over the summer to col- condition and reusable. exploratory drilling site after winter tundra lect data from 10 or more thermistor sensors BP began drilling in mid- travel reopens in late 2002 or early 2003. monitoring ice-surface temperatures and to November, two months ahead The corps said the insulated ice pad would provide side maintenance. … of conventional Arctic prac- tice.With such an early start, Yukon Gold No. 1 was com- mer and avoiding remobiliza- savings of more than $2.3 mil- al equipment back and forth pleted and the company had tion if the well wasn’t com- lion from the two single-sea- between two or more drilling time to begin drilling at nearby pleted before season’s end. son well completions, accord- seasons. Sourdough No. 2, where the This proved to be unnecessary ing to DOE. In addition, the DOE also reported that sub- insulated panels were placed since the Sourdough well also tundra endured significantly sequent site monitoring under the drilling rig to give was completed during the less impact than would have showed no long-term environ- BP the option of leaving the same season. been the case had BP’s crews mental impacts from use of rig on location over the sum- Overall, BP netted a cost been required to move season- the insulated ice pads. ◆ 68 30 Strong: Celebrating three decades of oil production from Alaska’s North Slope ALYESKA PIPELINE SERVICE CO. PIPELINE SERVICE ALYESKA

Dave Hackney, program engineer in charge of pigging at Alyeska Pipeline Service Co. Pipeline pigs dig the dirty work Instruments used by Alyeska to monitor, maintain 30-year-old infrastructure have improved

By ROSE RAGSDALE declined in the pipeline to about 800,000 erhaps the most talked about and least barrels per day,operators are cleaning out understood technologies in the trans- the line as often as every week. P “From a pig’s eye-view,the pipeline is portation sector of the oil industry are in-line inspection devices known as “pigs.” really two pipelines,”said Dave Hackney, These oinkers, like their namesakes, are program engineer in charge of pigging at built to thrive in messes. But unlike the CO. PIPELINE SERVICE ALYESKA Alyeska. barnyard animals, oil industry pigs are lean, The section from Pump Station 1 to industrious machines designed to wallow Pump Station 4 is typically cleaned by a pig inside operating pipelines, where operators every two weeks, but the longer section cannot. from Pump Station 4 to Valdez is quite a bit Industry pigs, an acronym for pipeline cooler.“So we run a pig on that section This pig has hard plastic discs for aggressive clean- every week,”Hackney said. inspection gauges and sometimes as big ing. Alyeska Pipeline Service Co. technicians run as automobiles, are periodically inserted them through sections of the 800-mile trans- Instrument pigs, or so-called “smart” into pipelines by operators to perform Alaska oil pipeline as needed. pigs, have high-tech circuitry that enables them to record images of the pipe using numerous and increasingly sophisticated These are the most frequently used pigs ultrasonic and magnetic sensors. Operators tasks.There are two basic types, mechani- on the 800-mile trans-Alaska oil pipeline. check these images for signs of corrosion, cal and instrument. Alyeska Pipeline Service Co., the pipeline’s stress and bending in pipe walls. Mechanical pigs do everything from operator, once sent cleaning pigs through sweep trash out of a pipeline to scrape the pipeline about once a month. But as First pigs down line in 1978 waxy buildup off its walls. Alaska North Slope crude flow has But the story of pigs in Alaska’s oil 30 Strong: Celebrating three decades of oil production from Alaska’s North Slope 69 industry begins and ends at Alyeska Pipeline Service Co. The company sent its first corrosion pig and caliper pig through the pipeline to look for dents in 1978, less than a year after the pipeline’s startup.

“Neither (of the pigs) was very sophisti- CO. PIPELINE SERVICE ALYESKA cated, but they got better as time went on,” said Hackney. Among the company’s early experiences was the time it sent a curvature, or defor- mation, pig through the pipeline in 1979 and it got stuck at check valve 29.Alyeska ended up opening the check valve, remov- ing the pig and installing a stopple and bypass at the location. Alyeska engineers had been advised by expert consultants that the pipeline would have little trouble with corrosion. Still, the company chose to commit substantial time and resources to developing better instru- ment pigs to make doubly sure. In time, it became clear that the pigs This paraffin cup scraper pig is used to clean wax buildup from the walls inside the trans-Alaska oil were returning data to the company that pipeline. It is one of three types of cleaning pigs used on the trans-Alaska oil pipeline and the one left huge gaps in information.Alyeska Alyeska Pipeline Service Co. uses most often. began working with NKK, a Japanese ven- “We did all this at a time when we recalled. dor, to develop an ultrasonic transduction, thought we wouldn’t have a problem with A deformation pig, which detects dents or UT,pig that could produce more reliable corrosion,”Hackney said. and bends in the pipe, began to return dis- data. The new instrument pigs took their first turbing data. A UT pig sends sound waves through maiden trip down the pipeline in 1987 and “One of the company’s greatest success- the pipe and compares the speed of their encountered significant signs of external es with this instrument happened when it propagation with what would be expected corrosion on the buried pipe near the detected wrinkling of pipe under the in a pipe of proper thickness. Chandalar River. Dietrich River near Milepost 200 in 1985,” “NKK used Alyeska as a test bed for a “The first anomaly we dug up had Hackney said.“We did a reroute in February better ultrasonic pig and when they were enough corrosion that we had to put a when it was 68 degrees below zero successful, we paid them for the data,” sleeve on it,”Hackney said.“We thought we Fahrenheit. It was a success story because Hackney said. wouldn’t have a problem with corrosion, we intervened before oil got out of the Alyeska also worked with a Canadian but our world changed when the pigs told pipe.” company,International Pipeline us otherwise.” Engineering Ltd., to develop a magnetic Alyeska ended up putting so many Pigs grow smarter flux leakage, or MFL, pig. sleeves on pipe in the Atigun Pass area in An MFL pig uses magnets to saturate the The pipeline was settling as it melted the late 1980s and 1990 that the company pipe walls with magnetic lines of force or ice and permafrost below buried sections. decided in 1991 to dig up and replace nine flux, and if the lines are disturbed and leak This was another phenomenon that miles of pipe on the north side of the pass. out, the pig can sense the leakage and Alyeska engineers needed to carefully Meanwhile, concern arose in the early deduce how much metal has been lost watch, so they urged instrument pig manu- 1980s about the pipeline moving, Hackney from the pipe’s walls. see PIPELINE PIGS page 70 70 30 Strong: Celebrating three decades of oil production from Alaska’s North Slope ALYESKA PIPELINE SERVICE CO. PIPELINE SERVICE ALYESKA

Alyeska Pipeline Service Co. technicians generally run this device in rotation with a disc pig prior to sending a smart pig down the pipeline. continued from page 69 a computer and determine con- using second-generation ultra- Most of the pipeline’s corro- clusively if the line has moved sonic pigs, instruments that sion has stemmed from exter- PIPELINE PIGS and if that movement poses a operate 512 transducers, with nal forces such as water over facturers to develop an even threat to the pipeline’s integrity. each recording 625 readings a the years.At 30, Hackney said smarter device called a “Geo” “The pipeline moved quite a second, Hackney said.An on- the line is still relatively young pig. bit as it settled, but it’s settled board computer stores all the by industry standards. “The Geo pig has the brains in now and moves less and data and keeps track of where “Age is less important than of a guidance missile,”Hackney less,”Hackney said.“Most of the readings are taken.This helps maintenance and the character- said.“It gives its position in buried pipe is now a foot operators pinpoint places istics of the contents of the three-dimensional space every (deeper) than where we put it, quickly where the pipe wall is pipeline,”he explained.“For 2 inches.” but now the pipeline hardly thinner. example, the guys who manu- Using data from different moves at all.” By comparison, the ultra- facture our magnetic pigs run a Geo pig runs,Alyeska engineers Over the years, pig vendors sound instrument in the doc- pipeline in northern Canada can plot the position of the have made more technological tor’s office uses a single trans- that has to be replaced every pipeline within millimeters on advances. ducer to register and record two years.” For example,Alyeska is now images of the human body. Hackney said that pipeline Alyeska also encouraged transports a highly corrosive vendors to make improvements product. in the magnetic pigs. “They’ve done a pretty good Smaller models coming job keeping up with technolo- More advances in pig tech- gy,”said Hackney.“As a result, nology also may be under way. we have a pretty good idea of Hackney said an instrument what the inside of the pipe that can detect cracks in the looks like.” pipeline, ostensibly called a He likened Alyeska’s new “crack” pig is currently being pigs to race cars.“Pigs come in developed, but Alyeska does different sizes, shapes and con- not anticipate having a big figurations, and other compa- need for it. nies buy the taxicab models,” “We have really good steel, he said. and our pipe isn’t prone to 30 Strong: Celebrating three decades of oil production from Alaska’s North Slope 71 ALYESKA PIPELINE SERVICE CO. PIPELINE SERVICE ALYESKA

Alyeska Pipeline Service Co. sent this instrumentation — or “smart” pig — down the trans-Alaska oil pipeline earlier this year from Pump Station 4 to Valdez. Here engineer Dave Hackney joins another worker in examining the pig. cracking,”he said.“We have no evidence that we are suscepti- ble to cracks. But we look for it every time we dig up the pipe.” The last time Alyeska took a look? In June, said Hackney. 30 Strong Despite their increasing Is there a way to drill out sophistication, smart pigs do through the side of an existing have limitations. Current mod- well bore? You bet. Use coiled els can be too big to navigate tubing with a mud-motor- many pipes.To remedy this, the powered drill bit to break out. industry envisions smaller, svel- Learn more on page 24. ter robots that move under their own power and go wher- Nondestructive Testing and ever an operator directs them, Evaluation International.They no matter the direction of the use a device that moves flow of oil (or natural gas in gas through a pipeline while rotat- pipelines).These robots will ing pairs of permanent mag- require much lighter sensors, nets around a central axis, stir- and researchers are looking at a ring up powerful “eddy cur- number of techniques. rents” in the surrounding metal. J. Bruce Nestleroth and Variations in these currents can Richard J. Davis, of Battelle, paint a detailed picture of the based in Columbus, Ohio, pipeline’s walls. ◆ describe one sensing method —Petroleum News staff in an article published on Aug. writer Alan Bailey contributed 30 in the journal to this article. 72 30 Strong: Celebrating three decades of oil production from Alaska’s North Slope ALYESKA PIPELINE SERVICE CO. PIPELINE SERVICE ALYESKA

A prevention and response tug maneuvers to assist the Overseas Chicago in getting under way after taking on a load of crude at the Valdez Marine Terminal, while an enhanced tractor tug waits in the background. Prevention fuels best practices hunt SERVS, terminal benefit from Alyeska’s commitment to doing it right, best technology

By ROSE RAGSDALE was an aggressive “Some of the boats could do docking, nquestionably, the watershed event move by Alyeska, in and some were equipped more for tow- in the evolution of oil spill preven- cooperation with the ing operations and used for escorting the U tion and response technologies U.S. Coast Guard, the tankers through the sound,”said Greg used by Alyeska Pipeline Service Co. was State of Alaska and oth- Jones, senior vice president of operations the Exxon Valdez oil spill. ers, to ensure that at Alyeska.“We had another class of ves-

In a little over 11 1/2 years, oil tankers nothing like the Exxon CO. PIPELINE SERVICE ALYESKA sel that pretty much had a bunch of pol- had taken on loads of Alaska North Slope Valdez spill could ever lution response equipment on board and crude and transported them to market happen again. did provide a lot of value as a tug.” Greg Jones, Valdez without incident nearly 9,000 times. Part of that vice president, Crowley’s tugs world-class But on March 24, 1989, all that response was the cre- Alyeska Pipeline changed when the Exxon Valdez ran ation of the Ship Service Co. Alyeska hired Crowley Maritime Corp aground on Bligh Reef. An inexperienced Escort Response in 1995 as its long-term marine contrac- crewman, maneuvering to avoid huge Vessels System or SERVS, as it is common- tor to provide tugs, barges, and qualified chunks of ice that had calved into the ly known. Established July 10, 1989, personnel for SERVS.The goal was to Sound from Columbia Glacier, managed SERVS soon acquired a fleet of tugboats comply with federal and state regulations to rip a hole in the bottom of the single- and escort ships and set up a schedule imposed as a reaction to the Exxon hull tanker. for the vessels to escort oil-laden tankers Valdez spill, according to Chairman, The resulting oil spill disaster grabbed through Prince William Sound into the President and CEO Thomas B.Crowley Jr. headlines around the world and brought Gulf of Alaska. But an objective assessment of SERVS years of outrage and recriminations. But a Their mission: Help steer the oil revealed the system’s inefficiencies and significant outcome of the entire episode tankers out of harm’s way and provide initial oil spill response in an emergency. see SERVS page 74 30 Strong: Celebrating three decades of oil production from Alaska’s North Slope 73

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© 2007 Schlumberger 74 30 Strong: Celebrating three decades of oil production from Alaska’s North Slope continued from page 72 SERVS that it lacked the prevention focus that Alyeska adopted as its top priority, Jones said. To improve SERVS capabilities,Alyeska and Crowley designed and built two classes of new tugboats with an empha- sis on prevention and with input from

state, federal and industry experts as well PREDEGER,DAVID CO. PIPELINE SERVICE ALYESKA as local citizens on the Prince William Sound’s Regional Citizens’Advisory Council. Alyeska rarely departs from its tradi- tional approach of purchasing off-the- shelf tec hnology but in this instance, the company opted to build the tugs from scratch. In developing the final designs The Nanuq, one of two enhanced tractor tugs operated by Alyeska Pipeline Service Co., is tethered to for the tugs, the company spent $2 mil- the stern of the oil tanker American Progress as it heads for the open ocean beyond Prince William lion on a risk assessment study in which Sound. Alyeska’s new emergency prevention priority requires tug operator Crowley Marine Alaska to the State of Alaska, the marine shippers keep a line attached to oil tankers under way through the Sound. and the council collaborated. bollard pull of 208,000 pounds and a ves- engines, and together, they cost $75 million. “We wanted to build the system based sel speed of 14.5 knots. They also are equipped with state-of-the-art on science and good engineering prac- “The specially designed tractor tugs water cannons to combat a possible fire on tices and not just on people’s hunches,” are amazing,”said Jones.“They have a a tanker or at the Valdez Marine Terminal. Jones said. deep skag or keel that enables them to “There is nothing like them in the “We have developed and built vessels turn sideways in the water without cap- world,”Jones said.“My understanding is we to meet the “Best Available Technology” sizing.This creates a tremendous drag, or have more firefighting capability in Prince requirement of the State of Alaska and braking force to stop a tanker.” William Sound than they have on the entire Alyeska, both of which are committed to If a conventional tug tried the maneu- (Lower 48) West Coast.” making Prince William Sound safe for oil ver, Jones said, the forces involved would In addition to the extraordinary tugs, transportation,”Crowley told Time flip the vessel over. SERVS maintains several conventional tugs, Magazine in 2001. a supply boat, and an oil spill response ves- Crowley has supplied SERVS with PRTs can turn 360 degrees sel as well as six large barges, four of them three prevention-response tugs or PRTs Jones said the PRTs have “z”drives and manned, and an assortment of skimmers and two enhanced tractor tugs.The PRTs rotating dual thrusters on their sterns. and small barges for response readiness, all can generate a certified bollard pull of “Think of them as having conventional pro- of which is based on the latest and best 305,000 pounds and a free running pellers but ones that can turn on their axis technology available, officials say. speed in excess of 16 knots.They also are 360 degrees,”he said.“Those tugs are more Jones said the U.S. Coast Guard also equipped with firefighting cannons and capable as towing vessels in open water operates a vessel traffic service where it emergency response and oil spill recov- because they have the brute strength to monitors all vessels in the sound and joined ery equipment.The enhanced tractor come alongside a tanker and take it into Alyeska, the state, marine shippers and oth- tugs are the most powerful cycloidal tow,if necessary.” ers in installing ice detection radar that propulsion tugs ever built, capable of All five tugs have 10,000 horsepower tracks movement of ice coming from moving 360-degrees in either direction, a Columbia Glacier that would pose a hazard to oil tankers. If a chunk of ice drifts too close, the Coast Guard informs the affected tanker of its location.“It’s just one more piece of data that can be transmitted to the captain of a tanker to help the vessel make a safe tran- sit,”Jones said. Alyeska’s focus on prevention and the updated technology got a real life test in 2001 when the Chevron Mississippi oil tanker traveling through the Valdez Narrows avoided a collision with a fishing vessel that strayed into its path. “These tugs stopped the tanker very abruptly, and nothing else happened,” Jones said. ◆ 30 Strong: Celebrating three decades of oil production from Alaska’s North Slope 75 ALYESKA PIPELINE SERVICE CO. PIPELINE SERVICE ALYESKA

Alyeska workers lower a piece of metal called a “sleeve” into place, where it will be welded to a section of the trans-Alaska oil pipeline where corrosion or something else has compromised the pipe wall. Corrosion battle began on Day 1 Ongoing campaign slows aging in trans-Alaska oil pipeline, yields technology dividends

By ROSE RAGSDALE From the beginning, Alyeska’s most important inspection tech- n the beginning, it was an occasional the company has com- nologies. skirmish.Thirty years later,Alyeska mitted to aggressive “Thirty years ago the pigs were pretty I inspection and monitor- rudimentary.We were lucky if they detect- Pipeline Service Co. is embroiled in a full-scale war on corrosion and destructive ing designed to detect ed a 50 percent wall loss,”Johnson said. forces attacking the trans-Alaska oil the tiniest changes pos- “Now they can detect as little as a 10 per- pipeline. sible in the 800-mile cent wall loss.” Alyeska President and CEO Kevin mainline from Prudhoe Alyeska’s leadership also encouraged Hostler boasted in June that the pipeline is Bay to Valdez and in the others in the oil industry to use inspection ancillary pipelines, stor- Kevin Hostler is pigs, Johnson said. in pretty good shape after 30 years of oper- president and CEO ation. age tanks, valves, of Alyeska Pipeline Focus on external corrosion But like any well-toned mechanism, the pumps and other Service Co. pipeline system pays a considerable price equipment in the sys- Alyeska’s corrosion program began in for its attractive condition. tem. the late 1980s and resulted in the replace- A corrosion-related oil spill has never “Alyeska was one of the more aggres- ment of about nine miles of corroded occurred in the trans-Alaska oil pipeline sive users of in-line inspection tools from pipeline in the Atigun floodplain in the system, Hostler said.And, since dry oil pass- Day 1, so that when changes occurred in early 1990s.The Atigun pipeline replace- es through the pipeline, internal corrosion the pipeline we were on top of them,” ment triggered an ongoing “pig and dig” isn’t as much of an ongoing concern as said engineering advisor Elden Johnson, program, Hostler said. external corrosion. who was there at the beginning after “If you look at our history over the past Alyeska addresses corrosion control, helping to design and develop the 30 years, as we do our inline surveillance monitoring and prevention with the best pipeline in the mid-1970s. and our inline pigging runs … what we’ve technologies the industry has to offer, many In-line inspection tools, or pigs as they always seen and continue to look for is the of which the company helped develop. are commonly called, have become one of see CORROSION page 76 76 30 Strong: Celebrating three decades of oil production from Alaska’s North Slope continued from page 75 Institute of the rents back to the earth, reducing the risk of University of Alaska corrosion damage. CORROSION Fairbanks,Alyeska devel- Technology developer role impact of external corrosion, primarily as a oped a method to mea- result of water getting underneath the insu- sure and compensate “We didn’t invent these devices, but the lation,”Hostler said. for telluric currents. development of them and turning them The company requires pipeline repair Alyeska buried about into common usage in the industry hap- or replacement in any area where surveil- 800 steel coupons along pened at TAPS,”Johnson said. lance discovers a corrosion anomaly the 380 miles of buried If Alyeska found that telluric currents pipe. Corrosion engi- Elden Johnson is an impacting more than 40 percent of the engineering advisor were causing interference at a location, pipeline wall, he said. neers can observe differ- who has worked engineers would beef up the cathodic pro- That standard applies to the whole ences before and after for Alyeska Pipeline tection by using impressed current to fill in length of the pipeline, despite the fact that the cathodic protection Service Co. for the gaps or painting a half-inch-wide zinc current running through three decades and only about one-third of the pipeline lies in before on construc- ribbon onto the pipeline if the metal’s pro- “high-consequence” areas where the U.S. the pipeline and the tion of the trans- tective coating is damaged, Johnson said. Department of Transportation would man- coupons are switched Alaska oil pipeline. Over the years, certain places along the date that 40 percent limit, Hostler said. In on and off. pipeline have experienced significant cor- less critical areas DOT mandates repair or It’s an important part of controlling cor- rosion, that is, wall loss in the metal of 20 replacement when corrosion anomalies rosion along buried sections of the percent or more.Typically,additional corro- impact 80 percent of the pipeline wall pipeline.The coupons yield reliable infor- sion protection is added to the spot, but in thickness, he said. mation about the condition of corrosion some instances, the company covers the Alyeska also uses cathodic protection to protection in the pipeline,Alyeska officials affected pipe with a section of new metal help prevent corrosion, especially on say. Alyeska also buried zinc ribbons next called a “sleeve.” buried sections of the pipeline, which span to the pipeline to act as “sacrificial anodes” “In an extreme case, we can place the close to 380 miles. However, the pipeline’s to inhibit corrosion. In Atigun Pass where sleeve around the pipe and coat it.Then it’s location relatively close to one of the nine miles of pipe has been replaced, four good as new,”Johnson said. earth’s magnetic poles created special chal- magnesium ribbon anodes are used instead Sleeves are also used to repair cracks lenges.Telluric currents, the forces that of zinc. and holes caused by pipe movement and in cause the Northern Lights, interfere with The pipeline and zinc anodes pick up at least two cases, sabotage. the cathodic protection. the telluric currents and the anodes act like Alyeska also regularly checks for corro- With the help of the Geophysical grounding rods to safely return the cur- sion the old-fashioned way. 30 Strong: Celebrating three decades of oil production from Alaska’s North Slope 77

“We have a dig program every year.This rying low-frequency alternating current to Johnson said. year we’ve dug up the pipeline six times,” induce eddy currents. Such coils can be One technique the company has used said Dave Hackney,program engineer in made quite narrow,and can thus be used to and improved over the years to combat charge of pigging at Alyeska. inspect “unpiggable”pipes from inside. tank corrosion is a Magnetic Flux Leakage, In three decades,Alyeska has dug up The U.S. Department of Transportation is or MFL, detector, a machine that resembles buried sections of the pipeline 1,000 times, funding projects to test this idea in natural a huge lawn mower.The MFL, which a tech- typically 20 feet at a time, according to gas pipelines. Another concern, especially nician drives over the bottom of the tank, Hackney. on the North Slope since the Prudhoe Bay actually casts a magnetic field over the tank oil spills in 2006, is the possibility of bacte- floor. Looking inside the pipe ria speeding corrosion, Johnson said. A difference in the thickness of the Internally,corrosion has not been a sig- Alyeska adds corrosion inhibitor to the metal floor will register on the MFL as a dis- nificant problem for the main pipeline. Sales pipeline system to prevent the little bugs turbance in the magnetic field.This tells the quality crude and natural gas liquids have from thriving in water that may be present technician that corrosion may be present. very little water or other corrosive materials in the smaller lines. “We can judge the change in the signal in them, and they flow through the pipeline At the terminal in Valdez, the company to determine how thick the floor is and as such high velocities that little water has a has encountered another set of corrosion where we need to replace a section of it,” chance to settle out of the petroleum. problems. Pipes inside the treatment system Johnson said. The pump stations and the Valdez for the highly corrosive ballast water com- Alyeska does worry that the aging infra- Marine Terminal are a different story. ing off the oil tankers have leaked. structure issues that have surfaced on the “We can’t pig those lines and some are “We learned early on that corrosion took North Slope might also apply to the low-flow or ‘dead legs’where the oil just place at joints. In the early 1980s, we had to pipeline’s pump stations, said Hostler. So, sits in there,”Johnson said. recoat the ballast water pipeline on the the company is running a continuous moni- Transportation crude contains up to 0.35 insides,”Johnson said. toring program in the pump stations, using percent water,“so you can get a little water Another problem area has been the huge inline investigation tools.An analysis of layer at the bottom of the pipe,”Johnson crude storage tanks at the terminal, where monitoring data collected since the sum- said. water settles to the bottom of the tanks and mer of 2006 has indicated that the infra- Alyeska uses coupons to check for corro- causes corrosion over time. structure in pump stations 1 to 4 is in good sion in the low-flow and dead leg lines at Alyeska has placed anodes inside and condition, he said. ◆ least once every six months, he said. outside the tanks with cathodic protection Another method, remote field eddy cur- and inspected them every 10-20 years, —Petroleum News staff writer Alan rent, or RFEC, testing, uses a coil of wire car- depending on the observed corrosion rates, Bailey contributed to this article. 78 30 Strong: Celebrating three decades of oil production from Alaska’s North Slope ALYESKA PIPELINE SERVICE CO. PIPELINE SERVICE ALYESKA

The Valdez Marine Terminal of the trans-Alaska oil pipeline system has undergone several upgrades designed to eliminate uncontrolled vapor emissions dur- ing oil tanker loading and ballast water treatment. VMT gets vapor control technology Air quality improves after Alyeska installs vapor control system at Valdez terminal

By ROSE RAGSDALE istry. During storage, emissions of these vapors from the he biggest advance in technology at light hydrocarbons pre- tankers while they load. It uses vapor the Valdez Marine Terminal was viously dissolved in the compressors and special vapor recovery T installation of a vapor control sys- crude tend to vaporize. arms to collect the gases that accumulate tem at the oil loading berths in 1998, These gases can collect in empty spaces of shipboard oil tanks according to Alyeska Pipeline Service Co. in empty spaces either during the tanker-loading process.The below a tank roof or vapors must be kept in an oxygen-defi- officials. CO. PIPELINE SERVICE ALYESKA Before Alyeska installed its vapor con- onboard an empty oil cient atmosphere because they become trol system, an estimated 45,000 tons of tanker. explosive when mixed with oxygen.The crude oil fumes escaped annually from Most often methane, Greg Jones, senior vapors are stored onshore and then other gases such as vice president of burned to generate power, which is used oil tankers in the Port of Valdez into the operations at air as a result of loading operations.That propane, butane, Alyeska Pipeline to operate the terminal. made the Valdez terminal one of the ethane, nitrogen, and Service Co. The RCAC lobbied aggressively for largest emitters of such fumes in North carbon dioxide may be Alyeska to install vapor controls and the America, and responsible for nearly half present in the mixture.The vapors also difference the system made in the atmos- of all such emissions nationwide, accord- can contain potentially hazardous sub- phere in and near the terminal was ing to the Prince William Sound Regional stances such as the BTEX compounds immediate and dramatic. Citizens Advisory Council. (benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene and “Our people and the people on board The problem was one of basic chem- xylene). the tankers had to wear respirators in the The vapor control system reduced vicinity of the loading and generally a 30 Strong: Celebrating three decades of oil production from Alaska’s North Slope 79 substantial amount of emis- “This is a big deal.The ter- working to improve boom per- Now,Alyeska is conducting sions was going into the minal will be much more envi- formance to contain oil better a search for better boom tech- atmosphere,”said Greg Jones, ronmentally friendly,”Jones at the terminal.When heavy nology. senior vice president of opera- said. winds undermine the perfor- “We’re working on R&D tions at Alyeska Pipeline Meanwhile, the ballast water mance of boom placed around and some other companies are Service Co. treatment system is undergoing the tankers while they are load- looking at it,”Jones said. “This was a big event. It a modernizing process after ing crude at the terminal’s “Within the next year, we’ll reduced total emissions from three years of study and design berths, the company has been probably try out some things the terminal by 90 percent,” review.Built to handle the bal- forced to shut down the load- on a pilot basis and see if they he said.“And our employees last of virtually nonstop oil ing until the winds subside. work.” ◆ like it because they don’t loading when 77 tankers have to wear respirators any- would pony up to the berths more.” regularly to take on up to 2.15 million barrels of crude per Solutions for ballast day,the system now routinely water accommodates 18 tankers load- Another big project current- ing oil at a rate of 750,000 bpd. ly under way at the terminal is designed to control vapors Technology tests escaping from the ballast water The ballast water treatment treatment system. Ballast water system is based on having is kept in three huge 430,000- microbes that eat the oil in the gallon tanks that also have water. vents to allow vapors to escape “It’s hard to keep the bugs into the atmosphere. alive when you don’t have bal- Alyeska is tying the three last water coming in,”Jones ballast water tanks into its said.“It’s becoming obsolete, so vapor control system.The we’re making changes.” move will reduce remaining One tank will be removed emissions from the terminal by from the system, and Alyeska is 60 percent, Jones said. considering installing an inert “Closed systems are the way gas flotation system in the of the future,”said Alyeska other two tanks to remove spokesman Mike Heatwole. potentially harmful emissions.A The company will spread pilot project is under way to blanket gas inside the tanks to test off-the-shelf technology keep the contents inert and considered some of the best in prevent an explosive atmos- the world. phere from developing.The Jones said the changes work is due for completion by should be complete by 2009. year’s end. Alyeska, meanwhile, is also 80 30 Strong: Celebrating three decades of oil production from Alaska’s North Slope BP EXPLORATION (ALASKA) INC. BP EXPLORATION

Operators at Prudhoe Bay launched oil production with relatively modest waterflood and gas injection capabilities. This compressor plant was a part of the original development. Engineering ingenuity pays off EOR techniques developed over three decades succeed beyond developers’ wildest dreams

By ROSE RAGSDALE Crude production said Gordon Pospisil, technology manager etting more oil out of the ground is a would be helped along for BP Exploration (Alaska) Inc., Prudhoe technical challenge that teams of with supplementary Bay’s current operator. G water injection to keep “When the world did not provide an engineers tackled from Day 1 on the North Slope. up pressure in the reser- opportunity to sell gas off the North Slope, More than 30 years later, the brainstorm- voir.The Prudhoe Bay it changed our world quite a bit,”he said. owners built a seawater ing that produced and perfected a series of (ALASKA) INC. BP EXPLORATION So much natural gas remarkable techniques goes on. treatment plant to help But the story of enhanced oil recovery supply water for the Suddenly,Prudhoe Bay engineers found process and added pro- Engineers like on the slope is a tale not only of creativity Gordon Pospisil themselves coping with ever increasing but also of converting big problems into duced water and gas liq- wrestle daily with quantities of natural gas coming out of the bigger solutions. uids from the depths of the question of ground with the oil and no place to put it. In the early days of production at the the reservoir as volumes how to produce They began to pump substantial quanti- became available. more crude from giant Prudhoe Bay field, enhanced oil Prudhoe Bay and ties of gas back into the reservoir along recovery was a relatively routine exercise. But advances in EOR other North Slope with the water, and soon built a series of With an estimated 23 billion barrels of technology and a sud- oil fields. gas handling facilities — GH1, GH2 and crude in place, the gleeful owner compa- denly plentiful resource GH3 — completed in the late 1980s and nies were awash in oil. Starting with what enabled engineers to boost crude recovery early 1990s. in hindsight seems a modest field develop- dramatically.Today,Prudhoe Bay’s owner As more Arctic fields were discovered ment plan — 500 wells with 160-acre spac- companies have drilled more than 1,300 and developed, operators also jumped at ing — to produce 9.6 billion barrels of oil, wells, and plan hundreds more. the chance to boost production from these they crafted a strategy that relied on con- “At that time, it was envisioned that we smaller reservoirs with injections of plenti- ventional EOR technology used in oil fields would have a gas pipeline built within five ful gas from Prudhoe. Point McIntyre, Milne years to ship North Slope gas to market,” since the 1940s. see OIL RECOVERY page 82 30 Strong: Celebrating three decades of oil production from Alaska’s North Slope 81 82 30 Strong: Celebrating three decades of oil production from Alaska’s North Slope continued from page 80 OIL RECOVERY Point, Endicott and Kuparuk are all fields that drew on the gas riches at Prudhoe Bay to

enhance oil recovery. (ALASKA) INC. BP EXPLORATION Along with the multimillion- dollar projects that made this possible, field owners invested in a huge central gas facility to cool gas to temperatures as low as minus 40 degrees Fahrenheit.The unit processes more than 8 billion cubic feet of gas daily,enough to meet all of the natural gas demand of London or Tokyo.

NGLs make a difference The CGF also allows opera- tors to separate out heavier gas components as natural gas liq- As engineers developed more efficient technologies for boosting crude output at Prudhoe Bay using the field’s abun- uids, while the remainder of the dant gas reserves, the owners commissioned construction of a series of huge gas-handling plants like this one built gas is injected back into the in the 1990s. reservoir. The process, which works Beaudo. other portions of the gas drilling fishhook-shaped wells best in colder temperatures, not “Nobody’s been sitting on stream, they blended heavier around oil-producing wells in a only allows the owners to that gas, or warehousing it. It’s components with processed certain pattern. boost field production; it also been working mightily for us,” methane gas to create miscible “We would inject that fish- contributes output in NGLs of he said. injectant, or MI, a special solu- hook-shaped well with a ‘bulb’ about 50,000 barrels per day. Total NGLs output over 20 tion designed for sweeping oil of MI, and we would get a “If we hadn’t had the years at Prudhoe Bay? More from underground reservoirs. response from the nearby pro- Central Gas Facility,the NGLs than 500 million barrels. “Think in terms of salad duction well.We would see dressing,”said Pospisil.“If you these cycles of increased oil would still be a part of the gas A real EOR winner reserves on the North Slope,” just inject water, the water and production, so we kept on observed Pospisil. Engineering teams, mean- the oil have a sharp interfacial injecting bulbs of MI along the Over the years, the small while, set to work perfecting tension, and the water tends to entire length of the well,” increments of NGLs have added another known technology for bypass the oil. If you inject gas, Pospisil recalled.“This dramati- up, said BP spokesman Daren use on the North Slope.Taking miscible gas in particular, the cally increased the amount of solution helps to sweep resid- oil we could get out.” ual oil out more efficiently to A bulb is a quantity of misci- the producers.” ble injectant that forms a bub- Working closely,reservoir, ble within the reservoir.As it production and drilling engi- expands, the bubble pushes oil neers came up with the con- toward production wells. cept through trial and error of 30 Strong: Celebrating three decades of oil production from Alaska’s North Slope 83

Making a good idea great But Prudhoe Bay engineers didn’t stop there.They contin- ued to experiment and soon took the MI process a step fur- ther.They created something they call miscible injectant side- (ALASKA) INC. BP EXPLORATION track, or MIST. MIST is a system of wells drilled between injector and producer wells in a pattern that further boosts crude output from a field. By 1996, North Slope engi- neering teams were ready to launch an aggressive third phase of EOR at Prudhoe Bay and other North Slope fields using MIST.It involved integrat- ing the drilling of production and injection wells to improve oil recovery.At Prudhoe, they started at the central core of the field and moved toward the western part of the field to Northwest Eileen and contin- The Central Gas Facility at Prudhoe Bay can handle gas at a rate of 9 billion cubic feet a day, enough supply to meet ued until the system encom- the needs of consumers in London or Tokyo. passed Prudhoe Bay satellite ideas for the gems as opposed boost oil production. seawater, and then produced fields,Aurora, Borealis and to the clunkers.” “In waterflooding at water,”Pospisil said.“But we Polaris. A review of Society of Prudhoe Bay,we initially used “In each one of those satel- Petroleum Engineer archives see OIL RECOVERY page 84 lites (small fields with 40 mil- turned up more than 300 tech- lion to 200 million barrels of nical papers written on EOR crude in place) in the early ideas for Prudhoe Bay,accord- days, it would have been diffi- ing to Pospisil. cult to justify doing an MI From this continuous brain- process. But they are part of storming, three more promising the Greater Prudhoe Bay com- EOR ideas have emerged plex, so we were able to use recently. MI,”Pospisil said.“We’re also The first is “Bright Water,”a doing that in the Point system of injecting a polymer McIntyre reservoir.” down hole that reduces the vis- The producers also are in cosity of oil and causes water the early stages of using MI in pouring into the reservoir to developing shallower viscous avoid areas with high perme- and heavy oil deposits at Orion ability and go where the and Polaris in the Schrader remaining oil is located. Bluff interval of the western “We hope to implement Prudhoe Bay area. Bright Water on a wide scale if Innovations keep coming we can demonstrate further success in some of the trials. In each new application, the We’re still investigating it as engineers and geologists moni- part of (BP’s) worldwide tech- tor the process and continue to nology effort,”Pospisil said. develop new ideas for improve- Another new EOR possibili- ments. ty is low salinity,or Lo Sal, “We have periodic meetings waterflooding. In trials current- around each field to brainstorm ly under way at Endicott, BP ideas for pushing EOR to the engineers are injecting into the technical limits,”Pospisil said. reservoir water that has less salt “Then we pick through these than that typically used to 84 30 Strong: Celebrating three decades of oil production from Alaska’s North Slope BP EXPLORATION (ALASKA) INC. BP EXPLORATION

Operators at Prudhoe Bay have drilled more than 1,300 wells and plan to drill hundreds more in their quest to recover as much oil as possible from the mature field. continued from page 83 with less salt. Slope. The company also has satellite fields. “Using low salinity water, secured a rare patent for the Lo “Within Prudhoe Bay,we’ve OIL RECOVERY we’ve seen significant increases Sal technology.Typically,BP recovered 11.5 billion barrels of found that with low salinity in crude recovery,more than works with vendors who crude, or about half of the 23 water, we’re more effective in 20 percent increases in tests,” patent new technologies. billion barrels in place.That moving oil off the water.”The Pospisil said. “It’s a potentially ground- leaves a very large target situation is analogous to wash- BP is currently testing the breaking technology that BP is remaining,”Pospisil said. ing dishes in seawater or very use of reverse osmosis to spearheading in Alaska for Win-win EOR with CO2? hard water, he said. Removing remove salt from seawater and worldwide application,”said grease from the dishes is researching the feasibility of John Denis, BP’s resource man- Prudhoe Bay’s owner com- much harder to do than it building a large-scale water ager for North Slope fields panies are also investigating the would be in soft water or H2O injection plant on the North other than Prudhoe Bay. use of carbon dioxide as an “The company is trying to EOR agent.Trillions of cubic prove the technology at feet of gas reserves in the field Endicott and Milne Point” for have a CO2 content of about use in existing fields like 12 percent. CO2 is considered a Prudhoe Bay and in new fields greenhouse gas that is harmful under development such as to the environment. BP’s Liberty prospect, Denis Currently,the CO2 is pro- said. duced along with gas and re- “Liberty will come on injected into the reservoir stream about the time that the where some of it is permanent- Lo Sal technology is fully ly trapped. mature,”he added. When Alaska succeeds in If the tests are successful, building a gas pipeline system North Slope producers also to market North Slope reserves, plan to put Lo Sal technology the producers will need to sep- to work at Prudhoe Bay and the arate and dispose of the poten- 30 Strong: Celebrating three decades of oil production from Alaska’s North Slope 85 tially harmful CO2. Or they can ed very early (in the field’s heavy oils, which is a major ble up all residual oil in the come up with a way to reuse it, life), which was the right thing target of about 25 (billion) to reservoir and return it to the said Pospisil. to do,”he said.“As technology 30 billion barrels of oil,” surface. Nanotechnology also Of the estimated 33 trillion came along, it was either Pospisil said. could produce new EOR mate- cubic feet of gas reserves at applied or developed at Recovering 3 billion to 5 rials, he said. Prudhoe Bay,some 4 trillion Prudhoe Bay,where it was all billion barrels of this crude Continuing the flow of cubic feet is CO2.The field put together in a very intelli- would be quite a prize, the crude through the trans-Alaska would produce about 400 mil- gent way.” owners say. oil pipeline is crucial to lion cubic feet per day of CO2 Thomas said EOR enabled Biotechnology and nan- Alaska’s oil industry.Thanks to once gas sales begin, he said. producers to boost recovery otechnology offer new advances in EOR technology, “We could re-inject it, but a estimates of crude from promise for the future, accord- the producers stand a good better option would be to Prudhoe Bay from about 9 bil- ing to Tony Meggs, BP group chance of keeping the oil direct it to other fields where lion barrels at the start of vice president for technology. flowing for many years to it could be a part of viscous or Prudhoe Bay’s development to On the biotech side, come and doing it without sig- heavy oil recovery,”Beaudo 10.2 billion in 1986, and to researchers want to produce a nificantly increasing its foot- said. more than 14 billion barrels microorganism that will gob- print in the Arctic. ◆ CO2, however, presents a today. considerable challenge; it is Miscible injectant projects highly corrosive, Pospisil at Kuparuk also have helped to added. increase production at that field, which is the second- Doing it right largest in North America and Charles Thomas, Ph.D., of also contains heavy oil, he said. Science Applications International Corp., speaking Exploring newer frontiers at a 2002 University of Alaska Continued slope research is Fairbanks energy workshop, focused on the heavy oil, praised EOR efforts on the Thomas said. North Slope. “Outside of finding new “Prudhoe Bay got into gas fields, we’re looking at and water injection — it start- enhanced oil recovery in 86 30 Strong: Celebrating three decades of oil production from Alaska’s North Slope BP EXPLORATION (ALASKA) INC. BP EXPLORATION

A compact development, the Northstar development gets a lot done in relatively tight quarters. The five-acre complex has produced more than 115 million barrels of crude for BP Exploration (Alaska) Inc. in six years and is still going strong. Meeting Northstar’s challenges Technology helps island development succeed in sensitive environment with leak detection, smart wells

By ROSE RAGSDALE Denis said.“You can’t just drive n developing the 200 million- up to the field.” barrel Northstar field some Innovators at BP took on I six miles offshore in the icy these challenges and nearly a Beaufort Sea, BP Exploration decade and 115 million barrels (Alaska) Inc. placed a tall order of crude production later, the with its engineering teams: Find company considers the field a BP EXPLORATION (ALASKA) INC. BP EXPLORATION a way to overcome the remote triumph. location and harsh Arctic Ocean Northstar hit its milestone of John Garing, BP’s 100 million barrels of oil produc- environment and to wedge tradi- production team tionally larger infrastructure into leader at Northstar, tion in mid-2006, nine months the tight quarters of a five-acre marvels at the ahead of schedule.The field development island. availability of well came on stream Oct. 31, 2001. and reservoir per- Still, victory came with suc- “Developing the field present- formance data ed a whole series of technical thanks to fiber- cessful application of several issues and logistical challenges,” optic sensors unusual technologies. said John Denis, resource manag- installed in so- “Northstar was the first true called “smart wells” island in the Arctic for oil devel- er for BP’s North Slope fields in the oil field. other than Prudhoe Bay.“When opment,”Denis said. you’re on an island like that, you quickly The five-acre pad erected on Seal Island was so far from shore it wasn’t The LEOS leak detection system is a key technology get concerned about space and size at Northstar, the first true island oil field develop- because you’re in very tight quarters. possible to connect to land with a cause- ment in the Arctic. BP Exploration (Alaska) Inc. engi- Things like well spacing and systems to way like BP did when it built the neers buried the LEOS with oil and gas pipelines control wells become very important.” Endicott island complex just offshore in beneath the Beaufort Sea that connect the island the 1980s. production and processing facility with the pipeline Also,“you couldn’t have 24/7 access,” system onshore. 30 Strong: Celebrating three decades of oil production from Alaska’s North Slope 87

Buried, but safe pipelines? “So we were faced with hav- ing to connect the island back JUDY PATRICK JUDY to the mainland with a pipeline,”Denis said. Building a buried pipeline under the ocean to transport crude from the island to shore was a considerable challenge, but further complicating mat- ters was the fact that the pipeline route lay hidden from view beneath the Arctic icepack most of the year. “So very quickly,we had all the issues associated with that,” Denis said. How could BP bury a pipeline offshore in an area cov- ered with ice three-quarters of the year? How could the com- pany protect such a line from the scouring action of Arctic ice? How could it ensure that the pipeline could be moni- Burying the subsea pipelines that connect the offshore Northstar oil field development with land was a massive tored in such an environmental- undertaking that challenged the ingenuity of BP Exploration (Alaska) Inc. engineers. ly sensitive part of the world, With all these questions work,”said BP spokesman Steve pipeline plan soon fell into while providing reliable leak looming, BP’s engineers went in Rinehart.“We needed some dif- place, but the technology that protection and assurances to search of answers. ferent tools, the best ones we provided the critical compo- governments, agencies,Alaska “We went looking for the could find to make this work.” Natives and the company itself? best technology that would Much of the Northstar see NORTHSTAR page 88 88 30 Strong: Celebrating three decades of oil production from Alaska’s North Slope continued from page 87 them,”said BP spokesman Steve Rinehart. NORTHSTAR “That straw is permeable, so nent was the “LEOS”leak detec- if anything is leaking out of the tion system developed by oil or gas lines, those hydrocar- Siemens Germany,Denis said. bons will permeate the straw.As we monitor what’s in the straw,

Given that Northstar was a (ALASKA) INC. BP EXPLORATION remote field, environmental we can tell if there are any leaks groups,Alaska Natives, whalers along the pipe,”said Denis. and others were very con- It was the first time in Alaska cerned that BP could ensure that LEOS was used, and it was there would be no offshore fairly new technology at the leaks or spills from pipelines, he time, he said. said. BP is now using a variation Northstar is a very pressure- of LEOS in a new transit line the sensitive reservoir. Keeping the company is building to replace field’s pressure as high as possi- corroded sections of pipeline in ble is key to its operation. BP the Prudhoe Bay field.The com- realized that shipping gas to the pany added it to three miles of island from Prudhoe Bay and the transit line built this winter injecting it down hole, along to Pump Station 1. with water and gas produced “We’re going to do a trial of on the island, would be a smart Seal Island, also known as Northstar Island, was constructed in the winter of the LEOS on that three-mile sec- 2000-01. BP has engaged in two pipeline right-of-way lease agreements tion. It holds out the opportuni- move. So another subsea with the State of Alaska for Northstar, an export oil pipeline and a gas pipeline was needed to carry pipeline that goes to the island. ty to detect a very,very small natural gas to the island for an leak,”Rinehart said. “The LEOS is an oxygen- will seep a gas signature into enhanced oil recovery program, filled pipe that is designed to be the LEOS pipe. Every day,the Intelligent wells pass test Denis explained. adjacent to the oil and gas oxygen is sucked out of that Add LEOS, and BP suddenly Northstar also claims the dis- pipelines,”Denis said.“Should a pipe and funneled across a gas had three pipelines to bury tinction of being the first North leak develop (in the oil or gas chromatograph on the island. instead of one. Slope field to use “smart wells.” lines), those hydrocarbon fluids They have a little marker signal This innovation enabled they put in onshore and when engineers to install sensors that marker signal hits, they down hole that collect data and know they have pulled all of track well and reservoir perfor- the oxygen from the pipe.” mance continuously. LEOS is designed to detect “We knew we had to be able leaks as small as one barrel per to respond very quickly to day and to pinpoint changes.And that was- the location to within n’t really being done in a few feet. the industry,”Denis “If there were a said. leak, you would see a “From a pressure hydrocarbon or other point of view,we had type of signature come done some work on across the gas chro- locating technologies,” matograph, and you said John Garing, BP’s can actually estimate production team leader its location by the time John Denis is resource manager at Northstar.“We identi- it registered relative to for BP Exploration fied that we would be the start and end of (Alaska) Inc.’s non- the first on the North that sweep,”Denis said. Prudhoe Bay opera- tions. Slope to go after fiber- In tests, the system optic sensors and put successfully detected a them down hole just above the simulated leak of one liter six reservoir in each well to mea- miles away from Northstar sure pressure and temperature Island. continuously and wire it back “Think about it.We’ve bun- into our control plant, with the dled these pipelines and sealed data available all the way down them all up together as a group, here in Anchorage.” and it’s kind of like a giant straw Previously,operators had to running down the middle of physically open the well bore 30 Strong: Celebrating three decades of oil production from Alaska’s North Slope 89 and put tools down hole every time they wished to collect the data. The idea was to obtain con- tinuous data so engineers could get pressure readings as needed. 30 Strong In addition,“it minimized the number of times that crews had (ALASKA) INC. BP EXPLORATION How can you steer an oil well to enter the well bore with drilling bit from the surface? You wire-line or e-line to gather send pressure pulses through equivalent data,”he said. the drilling mud to communi- cate with control equipment at “There were cost savings the bottom of the drill string. and the advantage of not having See page 24. to have the equipment operat- ing on the wells as often, plus Overall, BP has taken tech- the opportunity to have all that nological lessons learned at data,”Garing said. Northstar and used them to Though Northstar’s use of develop and enhance its opera- the fiber-optic technology was- Aerial view of the Northstar shore crossing landfall at Point Storkersen, the tions at other fields around the n’t a global first, it was fairly point where the pipelines transition between buried sub-sea and supported world. early in the evolution of smart above-ground. The visible module houses an RTU valve. A team of engineers work- wells, he added. called the Columbia Moving spacing, going up and down the ing to develop the new 120 Rig system made System is a set of hydraulically well row,”Garing said. million-barrel Liberty field, for for walking driven pads that can pick up “It may be a few years before example, is currently spending the drill rig and move it forward its time,”said Rinehart,“but it’s time at Northstar, studying the Another innovation at like a big foot. like the Star Wars walker.” performance of that field’s Northstar was a custom-built “It can walk its way with dif- Though BP may be consider- wells. moving system that allows a ferent components of the rig, a ing building one like it for use Adds Denis:“Northstar is a drilling rig to walk up and few inches at a time, in either elsewhere, Garing said no other huge success. BP saw all the down the row of wells on the direction along the well row.It’s drilling rig in Alaska currently challenges up front and met island.The rig-moving system very effective with our limited uses such a system. them.” ◆ 90 30 Strong: Celebrating three decades of oil production from Alaska’s North Slope JUDY PATRICK JUDY

The Doyon-Akita Arctic Wolf rig was specially designed for Arctic exploration and can be broken down into truckable loads. Exploration rigs more mobile

By ALAN BAILEY sioned a joint venture between Doyon between drill sites, to enable the or many years large, powerful and Drilling and Akita Drilling to build a rig, drilling of more wells in a single explo- heavy drilling rigs had been the the Arctic Fox, based on a design that ration season. F norm for exploration drilling on had already been proven for explo- “We’re hopeful that we’ll be able to Alaska’s North Slope.With deep drilling ration in the Canadian Arctic. move this rig in three or four days from targets in the traditional reservoir rocks “It is a fit-for-purpose rig, designed to location to location,”Sheffield said. associated with the original North drill exploration on the North Slope of And Pioneer drilled three wells with Slope oil fields, exploration drillers had Alaska,”Pioneer’s President Ken the new rig in the winter of 2005-06. tended to use rigs that are equally suit- Sheffield told Petroleum News. In 2006 Akita completed a second able for oilfield development or explo- The rig’s design included a 400,000- purpose-built Alaska exploration rig, the ration. pound-rated double mast, rather than Arctic Wolf, for operation by the Doyon- But a shortening winter drilling sea- the triple mast of a typical Alaska rig. Akita joint venture.And FEX,Talisman son, an interest in prospects some dis- The rig was designed to drill to 10,000 Energy’s Alaska subsidiary, successfully tance from the central North Slope to 12,000 feet, considered an adequate drilled three exploration wells with that infrastructure and a need to make depth for near-vertical exploration wells rig in the northwestern part of the Alaska exploration more cost effective targeting the type of prospect that com- National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska in have been driving a trend toward the panies like Pioneer were pursuing. the winter of 2006-07. use of lighter-weight, purpose-built The rig’s modular design would Nabors rigs exploration rigs. enable it to be relatively easily broken down into sections that would load The trend towards lighter weight Doyon-Akita rigs onto a conventional truck for trans- rigs continued in 2007. In February of Pioneer Natural Resources broke portation.And that would all translate that year, Mark Hanley,Anadarko’s top with tradition when in 2005 it commis- into an ability to move the rig quickly official in Alaska, told Petroleum News 30 Strong: Celebrating three decades of oil production from Alaska’s North Slope 91 that the company and its Brooks Range Foothills partners, BG Group and Petro- Canada, had ordered a lightweight drilling rig, Nabors Rig 105, from Nabors Alaska Drilling,“for a multi-year drilling program with extensions options” in the Brooks Range Foothills. Rig 105, which is being built in Alberta, is a “mobile rig, not a wheeled rig, so it can be broken down and transported on rolligons,”Hanley said. Then in March 2007 Nabors announced that it was building a high- tech lightweight rig, Nabors Rig 106, at the request of Chevron. Chevron plans to use that rig in a multi-year drilling program in the company’s White Hills exploration acreage, southwest of Prudhoe Bay and south of the Kuparuk field. Rig 106 should see service for Chevron on the Kenai Peninsula before moving to the North Slope. Nabors Rig 105 for Anadarko and Nabors Rig 106 for Chevron will be the first “purpose-built AC rigs for the North Slope,”Dave Hebert, Nabors’ gen- eral manager for Alaska, told Petroleum News.An AC rig uses alternating electri- cal current for power, as distinct from the direct current of a traditional rig. ◆ 92 30 Strong: Celebrating three decades of oil production from Alaska’s North Slope The quest for happy caribou After 30 years of study, much learned about Central Arctic herd as industry continues to accommodate

By ROSE RAGSDALE oth government and industry scien- tists acknowledge that the question of B caribou in the oil fields of the Arctic is PATRICK JUDY a very complex topic. “It has been a challenge for us to try and study it and to make sense out of what that data has told us,”said Mike Joyce, a retired biologist who worked for ARCO Alaska Inc. and its successor, Phillips Alaska Inc. Over 30 years of constant study,of try- ing to figure out how oil companies on the North Slope are interacting with the cari- bou, and how they respond to mitigation, the oil industry and government agencies have worked to find better ways coexist with the caribou and other wildlife species. In the Kuparuk River oil field, for exam- ple, when the oil companies first realized in the early 1970s that there was a caribou herd called the Central Arctic herd in the vicinity,scientists established the first popu- lation estimate of the herd at about 3,000 Lone caribou, Kuparuk Operations Center, North Slope. animals. herd over the past 30 years, and industry caribou. In three decades, regular censuses show has adapted its operations to accommodate This rather low-tech undertaking result- the herd has grown to exceed 31,000 ani- the caribou’s needs. ed in a complex distribution map, a mals. With the help of government and indus- spaghetti diagram that showed movement At the same time, industry plopped a 40- try scientists, including independent con- patterns and how the caribou interacted pad oil field down in the middle of the area sultants such as Alaska Biological Research with roads and pipelines when they where the Central Arctic caribou herd lives in Fairbanks, significant gains have been encountered them. and calves, bringing to the area about 160 made in understanding the species and its “You’d like to see nice straight lines that miles of roads, and hundreds of vehicles habitat. run across it, but we don’t have straight running back and forth in all directions at The oil industry’s goal has been to have lines — we have a whole mass of confu- all times of the day. “happy caribou” — to allow the Central sion,”Joyce said in 2000.“In the early days, The oil industry’s challenge has been to Arctic herd do what it wants to do, com- the late ’70s to the early ’80s, pipelines figure out how to understand what influ- pletely undisturbed, according to Joyce. were right on the ground, gravel roads ence its presence is having on the caribou, An image of “happy caribou” bedded were right next to the pipelines, and the their migration patterns and their very down in the oil fields, with steel oilfield caribou had no visual window to see if strong traditional use of the area.The herd, infrastructure in the background has been there was free range on the other side of meanwhile, has continued to grow rapidly, immortalized during the past decade in that limit.” and its traditional use patterns have had a national debate over allowing oil and gas As a result, the caribou did a lot of wan- high degree of annual variability,scientists development in other areas of the North dering and their distribution patterns say. Slope currently off limits. reflected their confusion. “When we start to think that maybe we But industry researchers studied the are beginning to understand something Spacing roads and pipelines problem and found that it wasn’t the gravel that is going on, then the CAH loves to One of the first issues that North Slope or the roads that caused problems. throw us a little curve and makes it a little operators had to resolve was putting pipe Rather, it was the combination of low puzzle, so that maybe the traditional use and roads and traffic in the middle of the pipelines adjacent to the gravel roads, and isn’t quite what we understood it to be. So caribou herd’s movement patterns. as animals approached this obstacle, their it’s been a very difficult topic. It has created They tackled the gargantuan task of line of sight was blocked. lots of debate,”Joyce told participants at a accumulating data on the herd’s move- The industry responded by building technology conference,“Established Oil & ments to determine what the patterns are. what amounted to sidewalks for the cari- Gas Practices and Technologies on Alaska’s Imagine young grad students sitting in bou over the pipelines — gravel ramps North Slope,”sponsored by the U.S. towers across the North Slope and tracking called “caribou ramps.” Department of Energy in April 2000. the actual movements of every individual “We built and studied several different Still, much has been learned about the designs in the late’70s, early ’80s, and what 30 Strong: Celebrating three decades of oil production from Alaska’s North Slope 93 we often found was that caribou would crude understanding and use of ice roads occurs to the south and west of the oil use the ramps sometimes, but they would in the early days as a development tech- field. Some calving still occurs in the Milne not travel along the linear feature to search nique. Instead of having a gravel pad for Point and Kuparuk fields, but over a 20-year for a ramp.And often, they would cross construction of the pipelines, the industry period, most of the calving has shifted fur- right next to the ramps, without actually began to build pipelines from ice roads, ther south, according to researchers. using the ramp,”Joyce recalled. thereby providing the distance needed to Why? And even more important, said But the animals did use the ramps to help the caribou get through. Joyce,“What does it mean?” some degree, so scientists concluded that Today,researchers still don’t know the the ramps could be beneficial in key areas, No traffic jams for caribou answers to these questions. especially if researchers could figure out The next focus was traffic. Pipes were Joyce said all kinds of variables influ- what preferred crossing locations might be. okay,using the right design and orientation. ence caribou behavior from year to year — They also learned that the caribou did The gravel road itself was not a problem. weather, snow and predators — all of not use the ramps in selective-search fash- “It became clear to us that traffic was which can cause stress within an area like ion. the prime stress in causing caribou to give Kuparuk. Researchers also studied the pipelines. up an attempt to cross a pipeline or a road. But further study will help researchers In the early days, the pipe was built right There were lots of trucks around, so traffic get a feeling for whether the shift reflects a on the tundra surface.Welders hated to get became the focus, and we studied traffic. real problem, he said. down on their knees, and they hated to We can’t control traffic. But if we provide “Remember, our goal is healthy caribou build scaffolding. Instead, they wanted to caribou with plenty of space, they can get populations — happy caribou,”he work at belt-high or chest-high levels, under the pipeline, check out the traffic, observed. which often meant that the bottom of the wait for the traffic if they need to, and then Joyce also said the number of calves pipe was too low for a caribou to walk pass,”Joyce said. being dropped every year per 100 cows, under. The oil company soon realized that traf- from the late 1970s through 1999, showed “We started looking at putting pipe up fic management during caribou season a lot of between-year variability.But when at a level of five feet high in the early would be necessary. researchers compared what was happening 1980s, and found that the caribou had good Other issues that greatly concerned the in the Central Arctic herd with other herds passage success under that taller platform,” oil companies were how to allow the cari- and other species, they found a fair amount Joyce said. bou unimpeded movement as they pur- of commonality in terms of down years, he So a new standard was born — a mini- sued their seasonal activities, and how to said. mum of five feet from the ground to the ensure that they maintained a healthy pop- bottom of the pipe. For linear features, ulation and net production. Calving has to Herd growth unimpeded pipelines in particular, from the early or occur at a spot that is beneficial to the The other component of “are the cari- mid-70s to the early to mid-80s, industry herd, with minimal predators, good forage bou happy and healthy?” depends on how began to keep the pipe up off the tundra, and low snow cover. So the animals use tra- the population is doing. and also to separate the pipe from the ditional patterns for calving. However, In 1972, when it was first recognized road. Instead of putting the pipeline right those patterns have changed over time. that the Central Arctic herd was a discrete next to the road, the companies spaced From the 1980s through the 1990s, a group, there were only about 3,000 animals them some distance apart. shift in caribou calving occurred in the in the herd, Joyce said. Joyce said this practice evolved from a Kuparuk area.The bulk of calving now see CARIBOU page 94 94 30 Strong: Celebrating three decades of oil production from Alaska’s North Slope continued from page 93 been studying this caribou herd stress had caused no serious coexist with the Central Arctic for over 25 years, and we still population-level disturbance at herd. CARIBOU have questions about what is that point. Among the lessons the oper- Over 30 years, the herd has happening with this herd.” “We’ve talked about the fact ators have learned: Keep pipe grown ten-fold, with numbers Joyce said it has taken a that we also have learned up off the tundra; try to mini- currently exceeding 30,000 ani- cooperative program working behavior, habituation going on. mize number and location of mals. with government agencies, the For example, caribou need to roads and try to not place them This growth pattern includ- North Slope Borough and vil- go to the coastal plain for perpendicular to caribou move- ed a rather significant decline lage community residents, as insect relief.They are harassed ment patterns — try to go par- in the mid-90s that researchers well as some very powerful early by insects, and it’s very allel as much as possible; and still do not understand. consultants with a lot of experi- important to move to avoid keep traffic down and control “We do know that there ence to try to gain the begin- this.A learned behavior that we it during calving season. Ramps were a couple of hard winters nings of an understanding. have seen over time is that our can be beneficial in key loca- at that point.We also know by Researchers agree that the gravel fill provides secondary tions, but probably more impor- looking at ungulates across the discipline needs constant atten- insect relief benefit to them,”he tant is giving the caribou space North Slope, that other caribou tion and surveillance and moni- said. between pipes and roads. herds showed declines at about toring.The Central Arctic cari- “You see a lot of caribou in Government has the same time. So this may have bou herd is the perfect exam- the oil fields standing on the been weather-induced from ple of how important a contin- gravel pads with their noses important role those harsh winters. It is not uous record of monitoring has down in the gravel to protect Because the Alaska clear,”Joyce said. been and will be for future oil them from the insects’ harass- Department of Fish and Game “Which brings me to maybe development on the North ment early in the season.They is ultimately accountable to the the most important lesson I’d Slope, Joyce said. have learned that there are public for the welfare of the like to share with you,”he told fewer insects up on this gravel Central Arctic herd, the agency Fields provide insect relief the technology conference in fill. It simulates coastal beach scrutinizes any influences on 2000.“For a disciplined wildlife Population numbers, howev- areas or gravel bars that they the herd’s sustained viability, scientist trying to figure out er, can help explain what the normally use for insect relief. So and makes appropriate recom- what the results are in terms of calving distribution shift means. there is a learned behavior mendations to land manage- cause and effect, a couple of In 2000, Joyce said he going on,”Joyce said. ment agencies and to policy years of data doesn’t help you believed the herd’s population “Remember that the herd was makers, according to ADF&G answer those questions.We’ve was healthy,and that oil-field growing in the mid-1980s, so researcher Dick Shideler. there are four or five genera- “One of the things we feel tions or more of caribou that we really need is thorough pre- have grown up with Kuparuk. development studies — but They’ve grown up with pads only recently have we had real- and pipelines and traffic, and ly good before and after data,” there is a learned behavior and Shideler told the technology an adaptation, and I think there conference participants in is some influence in what we 2000. currently see in terms of cause “But the bottom line for cari- and effect on the caribou popu- bou calving is that the response lations.” of the caribou to the roads and Monitoring the caribou over facilities really does complicate 30 years with the help of com- what our mitigation options are puter technology has enabled for future oil fields. If they are the oil companies to adapt so very reactive, it is essentially their operations to successfully unrealistic to expect that an oil 30 Strong: Celebrating three decades of oil production from Alaska’s North Slope 95 ALASKA DEPARTMENT OF FISH & GAME ALASKA DEPARTMENT

field the size of Kuparuk or tions down on the coast,”he its population has grown from these trends occur,”he added. Prudhoe Bay would shut down said.“We do not feel that the 65,000 to almost a half a mil- all traffic during calving, and in caribou can’t physically get to lion animals in the past 25 to More study needed fact this might not be effective the calving area.There is no 30 years.The Teshekpuk herd Still, the question of what anyway.So we have to look at impediment to ewes crossing hasn’t changed much either,”he the shift in calving areas means other options.” the pipeline and roads, but it told conference participants. remains unanswered for the Fortunately,the physical size really has more to do with their “From a biologist’s stand- Central Arctic caribou herd. of oil fields has shrunk about behavioral response.” point, trying to integrate all of Hoping to find answers, 80 percent since Prudhoe Bay Shideler said no oil develop- this conflicting information is ConocoPhillips Alaska Inc. and and Kuparuk were built. ment other than the tiny difficult.The bottom line is we the Bureau of Land As for the shift in propor- Badami site has occurred on may never know why some of see CARIBOU page 96 tional caribou habitat use, the east side of the Sag River, so Shideler said there has always that area can be used as a semi- has been some calving occur- control of what has been hap- ring in the hills south of pening on the west side of the Kuparuk, up through an area river where the shift in calving known as the Itkillik Hills. has occurred. “I can remember doing calv- “We have to remember that ing surveys with Ray Cameron some caribou herds, like the in the mid-80s during heavy Beverly herd for example, will snow years on the coast, and go through major shifts in calv- we had a little more calving ing area almost annually.On the down in the southern parts of other hand, herds like the the field, south of Kuparuk. So Western Arctic herd haven’t sig- some of the observed shift is nificantly changed its calving probably related to snow condi- area in recent years, although 96 30 Strong: Celebrating three decades of oil production from Alaska’s North Slope continued from page 95 CARIBOU JUDY PATRICK JUDY Management provided major funding for a five-year study of cows and newborn calves in the Central Arctic herd from 2001 to 2006.The National Park Service, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and state agencies also provided support. Biologists Steve Arthur and Patricia Del Vecchio sought to identify and measure the mechanisms through which oil field devel- opment might affect the Central Arctic herd, such as by reducing body condition, reproductive success or calf survival. In an interim research technical report, “Effects of Oil Field Development on Calf A caribou cow and calf at Kuparuk Production and Survival in the Central Arctic herd,”published in March 2006, Technology advances could help hope we can use the results to mitigate any impacts on the Teshekpuk (caribou) herd Arthur and Del Vecchio compare what One of the most interesting differences from development in the NPR-A (National happened to calves that were born in the in this extensive study from ones conduct- Petroleum Reserve-Alaska),”he told an two different calving areas, the mostly ed in the 1980s is the sophistication of the ADF&G spokeswoman.“To do that, the undeveloped area east of Prudhoe Bay and technology used today by the researchers. BLM needs to know more about the the area west of Prudhoe Bay that has seen Caribou cows were captured and fitted impacts on caribou of movement through increasing development since the late with collars containing satellite-linked GPS infrastructure.” 1980s. In the western area, calving has receivers programmed to determine their Meanwhile, a 2002 photo census of the shifted south since development began, locations every five hours from May to Central Arctic herd, the latest available, though the researchers point out that it October and every two days between shows the herd’s growth trend continues. remains unclear if the shift resulted from November and April.Also newborn calves The Alaska Department of Fish and Game’s development, increased herd size or other were captured and fitted with the radio Division of Wildlife Conservation counted factors. collars every June. Location data was stored 31,857 caribou from photographs of the Arthur and Del Vecchio found that new- in the collars and relayed via uplink with Central Arctic Caribou herd taken July 16, borns from the western area on average the Argos satellite system once a week in 2002. Groups and number of caribou were weighed a little less and were slightly winter and daily in summer. in the following locations: Katakturuk Point smaller than those from the eastern area, Techniques used to analyze the GPS (115), Katakturuk Point (4,526), Canning and that the differences persisted through data collected in the study have not kept River mouth (567), Shaviovik Delta (13, at least the first nine months of life. up with the ability to gather the data, so 461), East channel Sagavanirktok River They concluded that the differences in researchers focused on developing new (1,962), Putuligayuk River (1,437), size and mass of calves may be largely techniques for better analysis. Sakonowyak River (3,299), Beechy Point influenced by the quality of habitat and They hope to look more closely at (3,499) and Kaverarak Point (2,991). forage available to caribou cows during where caribou move and what habitat they “We located groups by radio-tracking the calving period. use in relation to oil field infrastructure, collared caribou from a small fixed-wing “Thus, displacement of caribou cows they say. Piper PA-18 aircraft and took photos of the from preferred calving habitats may Dave Yokel, wildlife biologist with the groups using a 9-inch aerial mapping cam- reduce fitness and survival of calves,”they Bureau of Land Management, has said he’s era mounted in the belly of a DeHavilland wrote. looking forward to that sort of analysis.“We Beaver aircraft, according to ADF&G researchers. The CAH increased from 26,128 caribou in 2000 to an estimated minimum of 31, 857 caribou in 2002, reflecting an annual growth rate of approximately 8.5 percent. “Parturition rates, late June calf-to-cow ratios, and fall calf-to-cow ratios were good in 2000 and 2001 and mortality rates also were low.Thus, it was not surprising that the CAH increased,”the ADF&G said. Though state biologists planned to count the herd every two or three years, they said no new census has been possible in recent years due to smoke from wildfires and cloudy weather. ◆ 30 Strong: Celebrating three decades of oil production from Alaska’s North Slope 97

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