When complete in mid-2006, the pipeline will be able to economically transport reduced flows of crude down to 300,000brl/d, according to Ian Livett, Alyeska’s manager in charge of the project; alternatively, if new discoveries are made, the pipeline will be able to gear-up to efficiently transport as much as 1.5 million brl/d.
By allowing the pipeline to ship lower volumes of oil and still be economic, the operating life of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System will be extended, and the pipeline pump station reconfiguration is expected to reduce Alyeska’s costs of moving oil through the pipeline by about 10%. In the 1980s, when the North Slope oil fields were producing at full throttle, the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System moved more than 2 million brl/d; production has now declined to less than half of that.
The project to modernize pump stations involves electrification and automation of four pump stations, the conversion of a fifth to a relief station, and centralization of major maintenance bases at Prudhoe Bay, Fairbanks, and Valdez. New electric pumps will pump crude oil much more efficiently than 27-year-old pumps now used at the pump stations, and automation will allow the pipeline to be operated remotely, from a central control facility that will be in Anchorage. 90% of the engineering on the project is now complete, and all of the major equipment purchases – such as turbines, pumps, generation and electrical equipment – have been done; contracts to fabricate facilities have also been awarded, the bulk of them to Alaska firms.
Pump stations 1, 2, 4, and are 9 essentially being replaced, with new facilities being built adjacent to the existing facilities. When the work is complete, the old pump stations will be taken out of service and removed.
Fabrication plants in Anchorage have been busy building 56 truckable modules for the project, or modules small enough to be transported by semi-trailer (articulated) trucks. Fabrication work for the tanks and steel skids is also being undertaken by suppliers in Anchorage and Fairbanks. The modules will be moved to the pump stations late this summer; five building units are being built on site at three pump stations, and these are the power generation units, with heavy turbines.
All of the new buildings constructed at the pump stations will sit 5ft above the ground on piles to reduce snow-removal problems and the need to refrigerate the soil at sites where there is permafrost. This requires about 1,000 steel plies to be installed, about 200-250 at each of the four pump stations.