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PETROLEUM DIRECTORY: Taking risks to succeed CONAM accepts business challenges without compromising safety Alan Bailey Petroleum Directory Contributing Writer
Surviving the roller coaster ride of the Alaska oil economy requires flexibility and a willingness to take business risk. Add in careful attention to work site safety and it's not difficult to see how CONAM Construction Co. continues to thrive after nearly 20 years of providing industrial construction services in the state.
"Our specialty ... continues to be heavy industrial construction or maintenance," Bob Stinson, president of CONAM, told Petroleum News recently, "and more particularly projects that are difficult and risky."
Although the company takes pride in sharing with its customers the business risks of challenging and innovative projects, CONAM does not take risks when it comes to the safety of people working on its projects.
"We're making a huge effort to get to a zero incident safety culture," Stinson said.
Founded in 1984 as an Alaska, open-shop contractor, CONAM has weathered both downturns in the oil economy and exclusion from North Slope during the period of oil company strategic partnering with contractors.
With the re-opening of Prudhoe Bay to competitive bidding in the late 1990s, CONAM is again working on the Slope.
"We had an opportunity in 2000 to bid some work again in Prudhoe Bay ... and this was in the Alpine field," Stinson said. " That was our re-entry ... to a competitive bidding situation and the work we normally do up there."
The Alpine swale bridge One of the more intriguing projects in the Alpine field involved building a concrete bridge over a tundra channel called a swale. The bridge would provide vehicle access from the main Alpine facilities to the new Alpine CD2 drill site.
The need to access the work site using ice roads posed a formidable set of challenges.
"We could only access Alpine during the winter, so that this project was slated to occur in February of 2001," Stinson said. "We poured concrete in 30 and 40 below temperatures.... and had to pour very high-strength concrete in those conditions."
To raise the temperature to a point where the concrete would cure, the CONAM crew erected a metal building to cover the entire 468-foot long bridge. The crew also set up a heated building where concrete could be mixed. The Alpine CD2 facilities As well as building the swale bridge, CONAM constructed the production facilities for the Alpine CD2 site. The need for ice roads again determined the timing of much of the work, with the short access season driving the need for careful and detailed planning.
"Scheduling is a big problem," Stinson said. "You spend all of February building your ice road and mobilizing your equipment ... and then you work March and April ... they usually want you off the tundra by the first week of May."
In 2002 CONAM undertook a similar construction project — the S-pad for the Milne Point field. CONAM's safety record and technical competence on this project led to the company's first major maintenance contract, Stinson said.
"After the S-pad project for BP our commercial and technical performance combined with our safety performance led up to an award for a maintenance contract," Stinson said. "... it's to provide road and pad maintenance and equipment maintenance for BP for all of Prudhoe Bay."
The award of this maintenance contract gives CONAM a predicable baseline revenue stream, so that the company does not remain totally dependent on continuously finding new construction projects. The Redoubt Shoal pipelines In the summer of 2001, CONAM undertook the unique challenge of laying three pipelines to the Osprey platform in Forest Oil's Redoubt Shoal field in the Cook Inlet.
"It's one of the most unique, interesting and risky projects that CONAM's ever done," Stinson said.
Faced with the problem of negotiating a 200-foot high bluff along the shore, the company decided to run the pipelines underground, down behind the bluff and under the shoreline. The pipelines would emerge under the sea, a short distance offshore, and then lie on the seafloor out to the platform. Pulling pipelines through the bluff CONAM determined that the most cost-effective approach would be to assemble the pipelines onshore and then pull them through the holes behind the bluff and out across the seashore. The pipelines would pass through metal casings lining the underground holes — a special coating on the pipelines would reduce the friction against the casings. An additional cased hole would carry the power and communications cables for the platform.
"We used the horizontal directional drilling technique to install these ... metal casings," Stinson said. "Then we pulled the pipelines through those casings out across the ocean floor and up a J-tube in the leg of the platform. And it all had to be choreographed so that the pipelines were pulled in one continuous section all the way from onshore to offshore." A barge with a massive winch, anchored offshore, did most of the pulling. A custom-designed chain jack on the platform pulled each pipeline around the bend in the J-tube and up the 200-foot platform leg.
Stinson recalls his relief when the crew informed him that the end of the first pipeline had reached the platform floor. CONAM achieved the project goals with a near-perfect safety record, despite the difficulties of using new heavy engineering techniques and negotiating the treacherous waters of the Cook Inlet.
"There were a lot of challenges getting set up and getting coordinated, and we had many, many meetings to make sure that all of our subcontractors were in line with our plan," Stinson said. "And our client was at all of these meetings — it was a real team effort."
Versatility Several other projects in the past few years have also demonstrated CONAM's versatility.
For example, in 2001, the company formed a joint venture with Aglaq, a subsidiary of Tikigaq native corporation from Point Hope, to lay a natural gas pipeline from the Alpine field to the village of Nuiqsut. The construction team built the pipeline from continuous coiled tubing of the type used in coiled tubing drilling, instead of the usual 30 to 40-foot pipe sections.
In 2000 and 2001 CONAM replaced the crude oil loading arms at the Valdez Marine Terminal.
Also starting in 2000, the company has joint ventured with Aglaq to demolish the old long-range radar site at Cape Lisburne. This project has involved excavating a landfill, dismantling the facilities and abating hazardous materials such as asbestos and lead paint.
"The unique part about that (project) is just the remoteness and the window you had to work in — we had to bring a camp in and house people," Stinson said. "We employed many Natives from Point Hope to work on that job." This type of versatility has enabled the company to work through the downturns in the Alaska oil industry, including the current shortage of big capital projects.
But, prospects of further oil developments and the eventual construction of a gas line to the Lower 48 give reason for optimism.
"There are still some positive things there but it's going to take a little time," Stinson said.
And with its exemplary safety record, breadth of experience and adventurous spirit, CONAM stands poised to meet the challenges of the future.
Editor's note: Alan Bailey owns Badger Productions in Anchorage, Alaska.
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