ExxonMobil in Alaska: Alternatives to a pipeline

In addition to tanker transport, jumbo aircraft, submarines, railcars, eight-lane highway, blimps proposed

Petroleum News

Several months before Richfield (would become ARCO) and Humble (owned by Exxon) discovered Prudhoe Bay in 1968, a low-profile team of engineers from Humble was sent north to gather information to determine the feasibility of a pipeline from Alaska’s North Slope to deliver hydrocarbons to market.

In October of 1968, after the Prudhoe discovery had been announced, Humble, Atlantic Richfield (Atlantic Refining and Richfield had merged), and Sohio (purchased by British Petroleum, or BP) formed a joint venture to organize, design and build a trans-Alaska oil pipeline.

In February 1969, the new enterprise, called the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System, or TAPS, announced its plans to build the pipeline. At the time it preferred a route from Prudhoe Bay to tidewater at the Gulf of Alaska. Alyeska Pipeline Service Company was formed in August 1970, to handle its design, construction, operation and maintenance.

A number of permitting and legal issues intervened to deter the pipeline, which are well-chronicled in other publications that did not allow pipeline construction to begin until 1975.

During that six-year drama, Humble, ARCO and Sohio reviewed alternatives to the proposed pipeline that would satisfy requirements of the National Environmental Policy Act.

Consequently, almost every facet of transportation was suggested: an 115,000-ton, 43,000-horsepower ice breaker/supertanker (SS Manhattan); specially designed Boeing jumbo aircraft; nuclear submarines; and an extension of the Alaska Railroad.

The oil tanker program, using the SS Manhattan, was the only alternate form of transport that was actually deemed possible and tested. Sponsored by Humble and supported by Sohio and ARCO (see SS Manhattan section in previous pages), the program cost $50 million and was ultimately deemed in impractical for transporting oil from the North Slope to market.

Boeing Co. suggested a fleet of giant airplanes, each with a 747-type engine, 478-foot wing span and 83-foot tail. That suggestion was quickly determined to be impractical, partly because unpredictable weather conditions would interfere with consistent transport, not to mention the huge amount of air traffic it would generate.

Nuclear subsea tankers (submarines) were suggested by General Dynamics Corp., but loading, costs and navigational problems sunk the idea before it got afloat.

An extension of the Alaska Railroad would have allowed companies to load oil into tanker cars and send them rolling south, but the sheer volume involved derailed that possibility.

James Roscow, author of “800 Miles to Valdez,” recorded several off-the-wall suggestions: Physicist Dr. Edward Teller’s suggestion that a deepwater harbor be cleared on the North Slope for a nuclear submarine by using nuclear explosions; a fleet of 60,000 trucks moving oil down an eight-lane highway through Alaska; and oil-carrying blimps.

Suggestions for improvements on the pipeline itself included building the pipeline big enough to accommodate man-operated tractor trains carrying the oil in drums and stringing “the whole thing from 50-foot towers like a high-tension electrical system.”

Petroleum News’ favorite alternative: A human bucket brigade passing pails of North Slope crude hand-to-hand from Prudhoe Bay to Valdez.