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Providing coverage of Alaska and northern Canada's oil and gas industry
May 2008

Vol. 13, No. 18 Week of May 04, 2008

Looking to share TAPS corridor

ANGDA has URS working issues of proximity to trans-Alaska oil pipeline, should spur line be built from Delta Junction to Glennallen

Kristen Nelson

Petroleum News

The Alaska Natural Gas Development Authority, known as ANGDA, has been looking at ways to get natural gas to Southcentral Alaska using a spur line off a main gas pipeline to be built to take North Slope natural gas to market.

If the main line goes to Valdez, a spur could come off at Glennallen and follow the conditional right of way ANGDA has from Glennallen to Palmer.

But if the main line goes down the Alaska Highway into Canada, a spur line would need to come off at Delta Junction and follow the trans-Alaska oil pipeline to Glennallen.

It’s a 150-mile stretch, ANGDA CEO Harold Heinze told the Alaska Support Industry Alliance April 22, and in those 150 miles from Delta Junction to Glennallen, “every issue there is in the trans-Alaska pipeline exists.” That stretch has varied slope, ground and frost conditions; and it’s both above ground and buried, he said.

In that Delta Junction to Glennallen stretch sharing the corridor with the trans-Alaska oil pipeline makes sense for regulatory reasons, Heinze said, but also because the route conditions are so well known, and it’s important in pipelining to know the conditions you’ll be going through.

Heinze said when he first talked to Alyeska Pipeline Service Co. about proximity — how close a gas pipeline could be to the existing trans-Alaska oil pipeline — he was thinking 18 inches and they were thinking five miles; that has now narrowed to a few hundred feet. (Those are not the distance between the pipelines, but between the oil pipeline’s formal right of way, less than 100 feet wide, and a gas pipeline.)

Technical and security issues

ANGDA has had URS working on the proximity issue and Jon Isaacs of URS Alaska described work his firm has done on right-of-way co-use issues at an April 9 ANGDA board meeting.

The work calls for determining the feasibility of co-use of the trans-Alaska oil pipeline right of way for a high-pressure natural gas spur pipeline, with the primary focus on the Delta Junction to Glennallen segment, but with a secondary focus on the North Slope to Delta Junction portion of the route. The work includes identifying issues associated with proximity of a gas pipeline to the oil pipeline and holding discussions with Alyeska Pipeline Service Co. and the oil pipeline’s owners to identify solutions.

Isaac said the issues relate to both technical and security issues; he said his initial feeling is that safety and security issues may be the most challenging because Homeland Security is a whole new ball field.

URS began by reviewing existing documents and discussing concerns with state and federal officials. In looking at co-use issues you have to consider those issues by project phases: planning and alignment; permitting and right-of-way lease or grant; construction; operations and maintenance; and dismantling, removal and restoration, he said.

Alyeska and the agencies are interested in all phases, Isaacs said.

Heinze told the board that at this point the objective is to get the broadest view of what issues are out there for discussion with regulators and Alyeska, and to demonstrate that ANGDA is willing to think about anything that could be an issue.

Potential areas of collaboration

Isaacs said potential areas of collaboration include shared work pads and material sites; shared access; power generation and utilities sharing; and shared security and emergency response.

The next step URS will take is to contact Alyeska to set up discussions. Those discussions would include co-use issues and concerns and would include an agenda and schedule for further discussions. Isaacs said he hopes to begin those discussions within a month.

Joint use topics and issues URS has identified include:

• Environmental, such as construction of river and stream crossings;

• Safety and security, such as protection of trans-Alaska oil pipeline facilities and federal safety requirements;

• Engineering and constructability, such as fault crossing and seismic hazards;

• Operations and maintenance, such as facility and utility co-use and joint surveillance;

• Regulatory and permitting, such as ANGDA right-of-way lease conditions and legal liabilities and responsibilities.

URS has referenced specific issues under each topic to existing trans-Alaska oil pipeline documentation and prior work done for ANGDA.






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