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First of Nikiski-built modules loaded for North Slope ARCO Alaska, Anadarko Petroleum, Natchiq, Alaska Petroleum Contractors stage July send-off for Alpine sea-lift modules Kristen Nelson PNA News Editor
The Alpine field development decision was celebrated in October 1996. In October 1997, there was a celebration in Nikiski: Sealift modules for Alpine would be built at the old rig tenders dock and facility, purchased for the project by Alaska Petroleum Contractors Inc., a subsidiary of Natchiq Inc.
On July 9 there was another celebration at Nikiski — this one for the load out of nine Alaska-built sea lift modules bound for the Alpine field on the North Slope.
Field operator ARCO Alaska Inc. and partner Anadarko Petroleum Corp. joined Alaska Petroleum Contractors, Natchiq, its parent company Arctic Slope Regional Corp. and state and local officials in thanking the workers who built the modules and in pledging to do whatever could be done to bring more module projects to the Nikiski facility.
These first large-scale sea lift modules ever constructed in Alaska weighed a total 4,500 tons and required two barges for transport.
New chapter in oil industry story Gov. Tony Knowles called it “a great Alaska story.”
The sea lift module construction at Nikiski, he told the audience at the module send-off celebration, is “a bold new chapter in the story” of the oil industry in Alaska. The governor credited the administration and Legislature with putting out the message that Alaska is open for business, the cooperation of local officials and ARCO and Anadarko’s “confidence to say that they were going to — for the very first time — see the construction of modules take place in Alaska and by Alaskans.”
Alaska companies and their workers wrote this new chapter of the Alaska industry, and “it’s not the end of the book, either,” Knowles said. “We’re going to go into the next millennium with the Alaskan oil industry opening up a whole new era of accomplishing this kind of value added.” There’s more oil to be discovered and produced in Alaska, he said, and a lot of gas in the state to be developed.
“And Alaskans,” he said, “are going to build those facilities.”
Alaska’s first oil field Kevin Meyers, president of ARCO Alaska Inc., thanked everyone for the work that went into the modules, acknowledging more than 660,000 man hours in the project which at its peak employed more than 480 people, 382 in Nikiski and more than 100 at the Anchorage site where seven truckable modules were built.
And last winter, he said, 1,600 people across the state were working on Alpine — on the North Slope, in Fairbanks and Anchorage, the Matanuska-Susitna Borough and on the peninsula. And the vast majority, he said, were Alaskans.
“I really think in many ways it can be called Alaska’s first oil field in many senses — because it truly is built by Alaskans for Alaskans,” Meyers said.
He also acknowledged the contribution of state government:
“Great things don’t get accomplished…without a lot of good partners,” he said. The governor and the state Legislature “shared the dream,” Meyers said.
“They have done many things over the last few years to really demonstrate that Alaska is open for business and that’s very important — for companies to do it right — but Alaska is open for business. They’ve done things like areawide leasing; they have done things to promote exploration; they have done things to promote enhanced oil recovery; they’ve done things to help promote the opening of the National Petroleum Reserve….”
John Seitz, president of Anadarko Petroleum, thanked the crowd for “your hard work in building these modules with a high degree of quality, on time and on budget.
“That’s truly a significant achievement,” he said, and “very exciting not only for us and ARCO but for the state of Alaska.”
Jensen’s role remembered Jack Laasch, president and general manager of Alaska Petroleum Contractors, acknowledged the opportunity ARCO and Anadarko presented to APC to build the project. In October of 1997, he said, “the site was completely vacant.”
“The person that gave us the vision that we could build modules within our company was a fellow that unfortunately is not here with us anymore, was our past CEO of Natchiq, Dave Jensen. He instilled the vision within our company that we could in fact build modules here. And deserves much of the day’s credit that these modules are here today,” Laasch said.
Jensen was president and CEO of Natchiq from 1993 to 1998. He was 61 when he died in 1998.
Bill Cheek, Natchiq’s current CEO, related to the crowd that someone with a lot of module experience, who’d run big yards in the Lower 48, told Cheek “there is no way, no way we’re ever going to build modules here in Alaska.”
Before you build modules in Alaska, he told Cheek, I’ll be sitting in a lawn chair drinking a mint julep.
“And you know what,” Cheek said, pointing to a lawn chair and drink positioned in front of the speakers’ stand, “I invited him to watch this load out — but unfortunately he left the state…”
Addressing the future of the Nikiski facility, Cheek said “we’re going to do our best to stay competitive as a company — both in Alaska, domestically and internationally, to keep this facility open.”
Cheek said that even though oil prices were looking better, he expected a lag before there was new activity.
“But,” he said, “I want to commit to you here tonight, that we’re going to do everything we can as a company to bring projects here to Nikiski because we know we can do it, we know we’re cost effective and now we’re ready to prove it to other clients.”
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