Engineering work, module building under way for Northstar

Increased cost estimate to London for approval; North Slope work will start as soon as weather allows

Kristen Nelson

PNA News Editor

We’re looking forward to a long, cold winter on the North Slope so we can get a lot of work done, Dirk Smit’s told the Alaska Support Industry Alliance Oct. 8 after an update on BP Exploration (Alaska) Inc.’s offshore North Slope Northstar project.

North Slope work planned for this winter includes the Northstar Island and the two Northstar pipelines, said Smit, BP’s Northstar project manager. One pipeline will take oil out and the other will bring in gas from Prudhoe Bay to supplement gas from the field.

Currently pipe spools and structural steel are being fabricated in Anchorage by Alaska Petroleum Contractors at their King Street facility and being sent to the port to be assembled into modules by VECO Construction.

There will be two sea lifts for Northstar: the first, next summer for living quarters, some of pipe racks and utility skid and the second in the summer of 2001. Drilling will begin in late 2000 and first oil is scheduled for November 2001. Work on the large modules will start in early 2000.

The largest module, the process module is being built in two sections because the weight and the length of the module, “we found that if we had it in one section we couldn’t handle it with our crawlers, the pieces of equipment that we use to move the modules,” Smit said.

Re-estimating, engineering

The cost of Northstar had to be re-estimated this summer.

“We recognized that because of the delays in the project, the time it was taking to get the permits, the development of engineering, we recognized that the cost of the project was going up,” Smit said. “This summer, we spent the whole summer re-estimating the job from the ground up, working with all of our contractors.”

Smit said he couldn’t discuss the new estimate, now in London for executive approval, but said the cost would be more than the $405 million originally approved for the project. BP owns 98.08 percent of Northstar; Murphy Exploration and Production owns 1.92 percent.

Engineering is ongoing, with facility detailed design being done in Mustang Engineering in Houston. They’re about 80 percent finished with the detailed design, Smit said. VECO Engineering in Anchorage is doing the design on the infrastructure — the living quarters, the warehouse and the first year utility tie-ins, and are about 65-70 percent finished, he said.

“So we’re progressing well with engineering, even though this has been a slow year in terms of construction. We’ve tried to take advantage of the year by getting as much engineering done as we can so that when we do start construction in the new year we’ll have a good basis to start from, we won’t be waiting for drawings, we shouldn’t be waiting for material,” Smit said.

North Slope winter plans

Early December is the target now, Smit said, “but if we can get onto the ice sooner than that,” say in mid-November, work would start then. Planning is done in number of days, rather than by the calendar, because of the weather uncertainties. The ice road that BP built last year lasted well into May, but this spring, Smit said, was unusually cold.

The critical path for winter construction is having the island ready to receive the pipeline, Smit said. Some 750,000 tons of gravel will be needed to build the island, requiring 30 to 35 days of round-the-clock gravel hauling.

Trenching for the pipeline on floating ice is the portion of the work which will take the longest. “It’s probably the area of highest concern right now,” Smith said. “We want to make sure we actually get it finished.”

The ice will be about eight feet thick at the island — and under that 32 feet of water to the seabed and a pipeline trench depth of seven-foot minimum. So from the working surface down to pipe could be as much as 50 or 60 feet, Smit said.

Closer to shore where the ice is grounded, he said, it will be more like conventional pipeline construction.