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APP looking at 3 construction seasons Alaska Pipeline Project tells Oil & Gas Congress optimization studies show additional pipeline construction season will smooth work Kristen Nelson Petroleum News
TransCanada and ExxonMobil, sponsors of the Alaska Pipeline Project, are doing environmental and engineering work aimed at filing for a certificate of public convenience and necessity with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission in October 2012.
APP would take North Slope natural gas to market, either in the Lower 48 through Alberta or to Valdez for shipment as liquefied natural gas, but the project’s focus is currently on the Alberta option.
October 2012 is the date required for the FERC filing in the license TransCanada holds under the Alaska Gasline Inducement Act.
Mel Johnson of TransCanada Pipelines, the APP pipeline director, told the Alaska Oil and Gas Congress Sept. 20 that the AGIA work is on track, but said he didn’t think the level of activity would have been maintained without AGIA because of commercial uncertainty. APP held an open season and received bids, but those bids were conditioned and no precedent agreements have been signed.
Three seasons of pipeline construction In a review of ongoing engineering work, Johnson said that on the pipeline side APP is “looking at a couple of optimizations” aimed at making the project better, doing it cheaper and doing it faster.
One of the areas being studied is optimizing how the gas is chilled. Johnson said that while gas flows just fine at ground temperature, because the buried line will go through permafrost and discontinuous permafrost the gas needs to be chilled so that it won’t have an impact.
APP is also looking at the construction schedule. Johnson said that because of the size of the gas treatment plant on the North Slope, which requires multiple seasons of sealift to move the modules, the required shipping schedule gives the project a bit more time on the pipeline end.
A two-year pipeline construction phase, with a year of pre-construction, had been planned,
“We’re now looking at three years construction, still with one year of pre-construction and planning,” Johnson said.
“By extending the construction period over three years, we’re able to optimize and we’re able to flatten out the manpower schedule … and that actually will be much more manageable,” he said.
Module size, pipe testing Johnson said that on the gas treatment plant side, “there’s been an opportunity over the last year to really look at the engineering of these modules and try to find the optimum size.”
The idea is to find the maximum size you can move and ship, he said.
On the technology side Johnson said his team had been spending a lot of time looking at the material side of things, working with pipe mills and manufacturers to make sure that when orders are placed the facilities are able to produce what’s needed.
They’ve been testing the X-80 high-strength steel that will be used, with work in laboratories, shops and in the field.
“We’re moving toward full-scale testing of pipe,” he said, and have already procured a fair amount of 48-inch pipe.
The 40-foot joints weigh about 10 tons and full-scale testing involves bending, stretching and pulling the pipe.
Welding techniques that will be used are also being tested.
From a technical regulatory perspective, Johnson they are working with “the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration or PHMSA who ultimately has the regulatory accountability for ensuring that we’re designing the pipe in a safe manner.”
Both ExxonMobil and TransCanada have strong safety cultures, Johnson said, and in the million and a half hours of work the companies have done since they started working together they haven’t had a lost-time incident, he said.
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