BP Magazine, Two 2004 30 Years Ago

30 Years Ago....

Trans Alaska Pipeline construction got underway by Frank E. Baker

It was December 2003. In the half light of the early Alaskan winter, the Yukon River was a wide, white band of frozen
silence. The temperature hovered between minus 20 and 30 degrees Fahrenheit as crews started pumping water to build
an ice bridge across the river. Several weeks later when the ice bridge was frozen solid, heavy trucks, bulldozers and
other construction machinery would rumble across it and move north into the trackless southern foothills of the Brooks
mountain range. In the spring this small army of several hundred workers would start laying down Alaskas first permanent
road north of the Yukon, later to be known as the Dalton Highway the first phase of what was then the largest privately
funded construction project in history the 1,287-kilometre (800-mile) trans Alaska pipeline.
The spring of 1974 in Alaska was the beginning of what has often been described as a three-year, modern-day gold rush
with thousands of people mobilizing thousands of tons of material and equipment across Alaska. Oil had been discovered
six years earlier at Prudhoe Bay, but it wasnt until 23 January 1974 that US Secretary of Interior Roger Morton issued the
federal right-of-way permit, allowing construction to proceed.
During those intervening years Alaskans, oil producers and other stakeholders were impatient for the project to begin, but
many vital tasks had been underway. By 1972 a full environmental impact statement, or EIS, had been drafted.
Encyclopedic in content, its volumes towered over two metres (seven feet) when stacked on top of one another. Route
selection and surveying of the entire route was conducted, along with soil testing and geologic studies. More than 3,000
boreholes were drilled from Valdez on Alaskas southern coast to Prudhoe Bay on the states northern coast, yielding
more than 30,000 core samples.
The size and scale of the project was daunting. The pipeline would cross three mountain ranges, 600 streams and rivers,
and the Denali fault, an area known to be seismically active. It would be built in both continuous permafrost and highly
unstable discontinuous permafrost (that thaws and melts each year and causes surface buckling).
In designing the pipeline, three basic types of pipe construction would be used along different parts of the route to address
different soil conditions: buried in a conventional manner; buried with special systems to reduce or prevent heat transfer to
the ground; above the surface mounted on support platforms. About half of the pipeline would be elevated above ground
and the other half buried.
The pipeline system had to be built to withstand a combination of stresses, not only internal pressures from heat, but
external forces from thermal expansion and contraction, bending and seismic forces. The 122-centimetre (48-inch)
diameter pipe delivered to Alaska in the early 1970s from Japan was about 1.27-centimetre-thick (one-half-inch) and
stored at Valdez, Fairbanks and Prudhoe Bay.
At river crossings and in certain flood plains, the pipe required anti-corrosive coating and an outside layer of concrete to
anchor it to the stream bottoms. Buried sections had to be coated and cathodically protected with zinc anodes to prevent
chemical and electrolytic corrosion.
Above ground sections required thermal insulation to slow the drop in oil temperature in the event of a pipeline shutdown.
To maintain soil stability in areas of discontinuous permafrost, above-ground pipes were equipped with finned radiators
that circulated an ammonia hydride chemical solution to keep the ground permanently frozen.
Every phase of the project depended on the one before. You couldnt build a pipeline until you had a road and a workpad
from which to construct it. Gravel for the roads had to be mined from approved sites. Hundreds of bridges were needed.
You couldnt put workers and equipment into remote locations until you had airports and camps.

BP Magazine, Two 2004 30 Years Ago

Frank P. Moolin led the construction effort for Alyeska Pipeline Service Company, the consortium of owner companies
formed to design and build the line, and eventually, operate it. In the early days of construction Moolin noted that change
was the name of the game on a project of this scale.
Were change makers. We start with zilch and end up with something thats supposed to work on time, and within
budget, he said. You change the organization in order to make necessary changes we went through more changes
here than most corporate people go through in 15 years.
Moolin was quick to point out that because of Alaskas diverse terrain, the pipelines design would be dynamic and subject
to constant change. If youre building something like the World Trade Center in New York, your exposure to subsurface
work is early and brief, he said. Here, well encounter it to the last foot on the last day. On this project, the design is
never frozen.
The first mainline pipe was installed at the Tonsina River on 27 March 1975, and soon the project moved into high gear.
The workforce peaked in October 1975 at more than 28,000. After more than 100,000 welds in less than two years, the
pipeline was completed. And finally on the morning of 20 June 1977, the first oil began to flow from Prudhoe Bay. By mid2004 the pipeline had delivered nearly 12 billion barrels from the North Slope to the Valdez Marine Terminal.
The original cost estimate for the pipeline, pump stations and Valdez Terminal the main components of the trans Alaska
pipeline system was about $900 million. But because of delays, inflation, environmental requirements that necessitated
re-engineering and re-design, the final cost would soar to nearly $9 billion.
BP chief executive Lord Browne was assigned to Alaska in 1969 as a petroleum engineer, based in Anchorage. Over the
years he has often reflected on the historical significance of the trans Alaska pipeline.
The Alaska pipeline project proved that such a major project could be built in a remote region, in difficult topography and
in hostile climatic conditions, with minimal environmental impacts, he said. Alaska, BP, and the energy industry as a
whole, have reaped tremendous benefits from the Alaska pipelines longstanding success.
Its early winter in interior Alaska, and Alaskas Yukon River is frozen and covered with a light dusting of snow as it curves
around the wooded foothills. Above the white expanse looms a 699-metre (2,295-foot bridge) built in 1975 as part of the
pipeline project. Barely visible on rivers surface are the small, meandering footprints of a red fox. The pipeline
dramatically changed thousands of lives over the past 30 years, but here, in the grip of winters silence, life goes on as it
did before.
Frank Baker began as a writer for Bechtel Inc during the earliest phases of Alaska pipeline construction in 1974. In 1976
he joined Alyeskas public affairs team in Anchorage, and in 1978 began his writing and editing career with BP.
Captions:
Major project: the first pipe at Tonsina in 1975, opposite; above, a convoy of construction equipment moving north by way
of winter trail.
Digging deep: Borehole drilling and, below, building the 579-kilometre (360-mile) Haul Road in 1974.

What else was happening in 1974...

Captions:
BPs seatbelt campaign began in earnest with a seat belt sled to demonstrate stopping force at seven miles per hour.
The Wytch Farm oilfield in Dorset in the UK was discovered.
Richard Nixon became the first US president to resign from office following the Watergate scandal.
Dorothy J McGonigle became the first woman to work in Prudhoe Bay as a field records assistant.

BP Magazine, Two 2004 30 Years Ago

Phil Kean, BP employee, competed in the Commonwealth Games at Christchurch, New Zealand.
West Germany won the Football World Cup, beating the Netherlands 2-1.
Swedish pop group Abba won the Eurovision song contest with Waterloo.
The Magnus field in the North Sea was discovered.
The Godfather Part II starring Al Pacino, right, won best picture at the Academy Awards.