Milne Point Pipeline applies to move gas

Milne Point Pipeline LLC has applied to the Regulatory Commission of Alaska to allow the Milne Point Product pipeline to provide common carrier natural gas transportation service.

Initially the service would be to supply natural gas to fuel generators at Module 68, some 400 feet from the southern end of the pipeline. The module currently uses diesel fuel which is trucked from Milne Point.

Plans are to flange off the pipeline at Module 68 until there is a third-party customer needing service. The pipeline company said it has been approached by the Milne Point field operator, Hilcorp Alaska, about the possibility of transporting natural gas to the field starting in 2018. A letter from Hilcorp Alaska to Harvest Alaska LLC, the pipeline operator, notes that the Oliktok Pipeline converted that 16-inch NGL line to natural gas service in 2015, and said the Milne Point unit “anticipates a future requirement to receive natural gas via the converted Oliktok pipeline.” The letter also said “Hilcorp Alaska is looking into the possibility of installing micro turbines at Module 68 and supplying the turbines with gas via the Milne Point Product pipeline.”

“In anticipation of these two potential projects, Hilcorp Alaska requests that Harvest Alaska undertake the process to convert the Milne Point Product pipeline to natural gas.”

The pipeline is a 10.4-mile, 8-inch diameter NGL pipeline built in 2001 which began transporting NGLs late that year or early 2002, the company has no customers because Milne Point has not needed NGLs for several years.

The pipeline was constructed to accommodate either natural gas liquids or natural gas.

The Milne Point Product pipeline has been connected to the Oliktok Pipeline, which has been converted from an NGL pipeline to a natural gas pipeline. The Oliktok Pipeline transports natural gas from Prudhoe Bay to the Kuparuk field.

- KRISTEN NELSON