40 Years at Prudhoe Bay: Fast and furious construction

Prudhoe Bay owners tackle pre-pipeline preparations at record-setting pace; Haul Road completed in less than six months

Petroleum News

In order to begin construction on the pipeline, Alyeska Pipeline Service Co. needed to put in a road to service its construction. The road would start at the Yukon River, at the end of the 53-mile Elliott Highway from Fairbanks to Livengood, and continue north some 360 miles to the North Slope.

Anticipating an earlier passage of a the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System right-of-way permit, tons of road-building equipment and camp units were distributed along the proposed route of the haul road beginning in 1969-70. One of the main obstacles on the route was the Yukon River, so ice roads were constructed each winter to keep material supplies moving north.

With receipt of the right-of-way permit in 1974, the project moved into high gear. The logistics of the northward flow that began in the winter of 1974 would dwarf heroic episodes of the past like the Berlin airlift and some great overland efforts in Alaska itself, such as the Gold Rush in the 1890s; and some military movements during World War II.

In 83 days, from late January to mid-April 1974, a force that at one point numbered 680 workers moved some 34,000 tons of machinery and materials into northern Alaska. This took 671 aircraft flights – a large number of those C-130 Hercules cargo aircraft – and 1,285 trips by truck. Seven mothballed construction camps were opened and enlarged, and five new camps were built. Five temporary airstrips were built over the snow and ice, to be replaced in spring by a permanent gravel-based runway at each camp. Crews kept at it around the clock in temperatures that dropped as low as minus 68 degrees Fahrenheit.

Michael Baker Jr. Inc. was selected to perform planning and civil engineering for the road project, which included the first permanent bridge across the Yukon River. A joint venture, Manson-Osberg-Ghemm won the construction contract for the $30 million, 2,295-foot bridge, which was completed in 1975.

Road construction expedited

Haul Road construction officially began in April 1974, and at the peak of the effort, Alyeska and its contractors deployed more than 3,400 workers along the 400-mile route. The road was divided into eight sections, and each section was built north and south from a center point until they all connected. Four execution contractors selected for the work were joint ventures Green Associated and General Alaska-Stewart along with Morrison-Knudsen Co. Inc. and Burgess Construction Co. Each of the contractors built two sections of the road.

Supply flights during the winter had just been the beginning. Now a squadron of more than 60 aircraft, ranging from helicopters to big, fixed-wing transports and air tankers, crisscrossed the skies over northern Alaska in support of the road-building effort. More than 127,000 flights were logged, an average of 700 flights per day. Suppliers flew in 8.5 million gallons of fuel to power construction equipment and camps. Another 160,000 tons of supplies and material were transported by air. By early summer, barges were bringing in materials by sea directly to Prudhoe Bay.

Alyeska picked Bechtel Inc. of San Francisco as Construction Management Contractor or CMC for construction of the road, 29 camps and the pipeline. The following year, Alyeska became CMC for the pipeline portion of the work, which included nearly 800 miles of 48-inch-diameter mainline pipe installation, 12 pump stations and a marine terminal in Valdez.

Trucks carried more than 31 million cubic yards of rock to bring the 28-foot-wide road up to state secondary road standards. Work on the 360-mile-long gravel roadway, later named the Dalton Highway, was completed Sept. 29, 1974, only 154 days after construction startup. The 3-million-manhour, single-summer project was unprecedented in Alaska history.