Northstar update: Pipeline to project being hyrotested; sheet piling being driven

Kristen Nelson

BP Exploration (Alaska) Inc. has completed the pipelines to Northstar island and is in the process of hydrotesting, company spokesman Ronnie Chappell told PNA March 26.

All of the gravel has been moved to the island, and they’re driving sheet piling around the entire island, he said. They are also in the process of moving items out to the island that will be needed to support construction until barge access is available in mid-summer.

At North Star Terminal near the Port of Anchorage the work force will begin to ramp up, Chappell said, as the date nears for the July 15 sealift for the camp and utility modules. Also under construction at the port are the oil and gas processing modules which will be sealifted in the summer of 2001. At nine stories high and weighing more than 3,500 tons, the largest of these modules will be the largest module ever built in Alaska.

Twelve drilling waste disposal modules are being built in Fairbanks and will go up by road this summer.

A rig is being retrofitted for Northstar now, Chappell said, and will start drilling this November. The rig will go out from West Dock by barge, as will the waste disposal modules.

BP said last year that module fabrication by VECO Construction Inc. and Alaska Petroleum Contractors Inc. would generate more than 100 construction jobs in the Anchorage area in 1999, increasing to more than 200 jobs in early 2000. Work will continue until mid-2001. A total of five modules will be built in Anchorage.