Oil patch bits: PND wins PDCA 2025 outstanding Project of the Year

Petroleum News

PND Engineers Inc. said recently that it has won the Pile Driving Contractors Association 2025 Project of the Year for its innovative use of its proprietary OPEN CELL SHEET PILE- system at the Oliktok Seawater Treatment Plant at Oliktok Point on the North Slope of Alaska. The STP Dock, a high-capacity facility constructed early 2024 in the Beaufort Sea, serves Santos' Pikka oil field development and represents the northernmost extent of industrial facilities west of Prudhoe Bay.

PND, a multidisciplinary Alaska-based firm founded in 1979 in Anchorage, has provided civil, structural, and geotechnical engineering services for Pikka infrastructure since 2015, first conducting high-level route alternative analyses and preliminary geotechnical investigations. Since then, PND has delivered a comprehensive suite of services, including environmental and permitting support, route reconnaissance, surveying, mine site development, hydrology, fabrication support, construction administration, and field inspection. Among the key infrastructure, PND has designed a 27-mile gravel road network, two bridges, community boat launch, and the award-winning STP Dock and associated uplands development.

"In my 46 years of experience working on the North Slope, PND has delivered unmatched design, execution, and overall project support in accordance with our Santos Lifesaving Rules," Santos Bridge-Civil-Marine Superintendent Jim Christianson said.

The project was featured in PileDriver magazine, Issue 4, 2025, with a picture of the pile-driving operation on the cover of PDCA's national publication. PND has won seven PDCA Project of the Year honors; this year's awards program was advertised as "the most competitive year in the history of the program."