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Love leaves legacy on and off the Slope Industry pioneer makes significant contributions to development of ARCO Alaska’s Prudhoe Bay, Kuparuk oil fields, Alaska community Rose Ragsdale For Petroleum News
When oil was discovered in Alaska, first at Swanson River on the Kenai Peninsula in 1957 and later in 1967 at Prudhoe Bay on the North Slope, the companies that made the discoveries attracted scores of talented geologists, engineers and other workers to the Last Frontier to assist in bringing the new reservoirs of crude online and in smoothing the path to ongoing oil and gas production.
Many of these individuals performed their assigned duties and returned south after a few years with colorful stories to tell about their time in the frozen North. Some of the newcomers liked what they saw in the Great Land and decided to stay, making their homes in Alaska. And still others heard stories about the wonders of working on the Last Frontier and boldly relocated, sight unseen, to the 49th state.
Frank V. Love, an engineer at ARCO California in Bakersfield, California, was one of the latter group.
At age 41, Love and his wife, Shirley, sold all of their possessions and moved their family from California to Alaska in 1968.
“We arrived at the Anchorage airport at 10 p.m. with a Chihuahua dog and an eight-year-son and wondered what we had done,” he recalled during an interview in 1985 with “ARCO Spark,” the company’s internal magazine. “We had never been to Alaska before.”
Gamble on Alaska Love, who died in December at the age of 87, got his start in the oil patch in 1946 as a roustabout. He followed his father in joining Richfield Co. in Bakersfield, and gradually moved into oil field maintenance work.
As a young man, Love raced cars and dreamed of someday opening his own garage. He worked in Richfield’s Cuyama field in central California, and looked north when production slowed in the mid-60s.
Love figured that the new oil discovery in Alaska presented a significant opportunity for him and his family.
“Going to Alaska committed me to the oil business, and my career took off after that,” he recalled.
Love’s gamble on Alaska’s oil patch soon paid off. When he arrived in Alaska, there was nothing on the Slope but a few wells and a small drilling camp.
He initially was tasked with helping to test the original Prudhoe Bay confirmation well, and eventually became a key player in virtually every important ARCO project on the North Slope, according to “ARCO Spark.”
He became known as an instrumental leader and innovator in opening the Prudhoe Bay and Kuparuk oil fields. He was in charge of constructing the first man camps and the first topping plant on the North Slope, and bringing on line the first pump station of the trans-Alaska oil pipeline.
Love also was well-respected and considered one of several key pioneers in developing Alaska North Slope oil and gas.
Master engineer “Frank was a master engineer,” recalls Tom Brennan, an Alaska oil patch veteran who resides in Anchorage today. “He was one of the industry’s sharpest guys. He had the capability for figuring out what to do with problems.”
Jim Udelhoven, founder and chief executive of the Udelhoven Cos., recalls Love’s account of one of his first experiences on the North Slope.
“He was charged with building a flare and had taken it up to the North Slope to test the Prudhoe Bay confirmation well to determine its flow rate,” Udelhoven told Petroleum News in a recent interview. “Well, they got the flow meter set up and got the flare set up. But when they lit it off, Frank said that thing started roaring like a jet engine. Then they began to open the valve, but they only got it open halfway, and the whole thing started to shake, violently.
“At that point, Frank said he felt something running down his leg,” Udelhoven added, with a chuckle.
“Love said he and his colleagues proceeded to call ARCO’s offices in Dallas and told their bosses, ‘You’ve got a good well here, but we don’t know its flow because we’re afraid to open the valve all the way’,” according to Udelhoven.
Primitive early days Love described the early days at Prudhoe Bay as being very primitive.
“At first we had 138 people living in a 37-man camp. We had one old movie projector running the same movies 24 hours a day. Once we got snowed in for five days and were melting down snow for drinking water,” he told “ARCO Spark.”
Another time, Love started out driving on a night when the temperature had dipped to 50-below Fahrenheit headed for a remote airstrip and ran out of gas halfway there. He said he had to walk a frosty seven miles to his destination and safety. Then there was the time, he scaled a damaged communication tower only to have his teeth knocked out by a falling wrench.
Andrew Riddell, Love’s grandson, said he grew up on such stories. “I was literally counting down the days to make my own Alaska adventure,” he said.
During his Alaska career, Love was involved in every aspect of the Prudhoe Bay oil field’s development, startup and operation, and he evolved from working strictly with maintenance to overall operations. He was soon put in charge of Prudhoe Bay Flow Station One.
Kuparuk development In 1980, he took on a new challenge, moving to the nearby Kuparuk oil field to assist in its construction and startup.
As a production superintendent, Love supervised 148 ARCO employees and contractors who maintained and operated Kuparuk’s huge Central Processing Facility No. 1. He also was involved in development projects, including a waterflood facility and a natural gas liquids plant.
Over the years, Love gained a reputation for helping ARCO’s younger employees.
He said his biggest challenge while working on the Slope was handling people. “Planning the work, selecting people and training them is important,” he told the ARCO Spark. “We have to bring the newer people along so they can move into responsible jobs,” he observed.
Udelhoven recalled that Love worked well with others.
One of Love’s longtime colleagues told ARCO Spark that Love was steady, calm and hard-working.
“He’ll tackle anything. He’s the person you’d choose to ride the rapids with. He’s a good leader who has a knack for picking and training people. He’s been a steadying influence that has had a lot to do with ARCO’s North Slope success,” the co-worker said.
In the 1980s, the ARCO magazine lauded Love’s achievements when he was honored by ARCO for being the employee with the longest continuous service in Alaska. At the time, he served as production superintendent at the Kuparuk oil field.
Love retired from ARCO in 1985.
Riddell, who currently manages business banking for Wells Fargo & Co. on the Kenai Peninsula, said he is proud of the contributions his grandfather and others of Love’s generation made to Alaska.
“We’re not living everybody’s history. We’re still making our own history here in Alaska,” Riddell said. “That’s why we still live here. I want to raise my kids here, (walking) in my grandfather’s footsteps,” he said.
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