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 - À} ÃÕÀv>Vi vÌ«ÀÌ] iÝ«>`} ÃÕLÃÕÀv>Vi VÌ>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 £*ÀiÃiÌ ÓäÊ>VÀià Pipeline Service Co. and Gill Mull £ÈÊ>VÀià £ÓÊ>VÀià >VÀià ÀÃÌi ÈÊ Chemical additive -âi Cover design by Steven Merritt £ä]äää¿ enables Alyeska xäÓ >VÀià Ó]ä£ä >VÀià £n]äÈ >VÀià ÎÓ]£Çä >VÀià Printed by Camai Printing, ­°än õ iî ­Î°£ õ iî ­Ón°Î õ iî ­xä°Î õ iî Pipeline Service Co. -ÕLÃÕÀv>Vi Anchorage, Alaska À>Li to achieve huge MILE MILES MILES MILES Ài> cost savings «ÀÛiiÌà `À} ÌiV }Þ Ì i ÀÌ -«i ÛiÀ Ì i «>ÃÌ Îä Þi>Àà >Ûi Ã}vV>ÌÞ Ài`ÕVi` Ì i ÃÕÀv>Vi vÌ«ÀÌ Ü i iÝ«>`} Ì i ÃÕLÃÕÀv>Vi `À>Li >Ài>] >Ã Ã Ü Ì iÃi ÕÃÌÀ>Ìð28 6 30 Strong: Celebrating three decades of oil production from Alaska’s North Slope 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.