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Conoco planning Kuparuk fiber optics
Eric Lidji For Petroleum News
The end of the United States fiber optic grid could soon be a little farther west.
ConocoPhillips Alaska Inc. wants to install a 96-strand fiber optic cable connecting the Kuparuk River and Colville River units to Pump Station 1 of the trans-Alaska oil pipeline. While Pump Station 1 is already connected to Anchorage, and therefore to the Lower 48, by fiber optic lines, data transmissions between the two more western North Slope oil fields and Pump Station 1 are currently conducted using microwave signals.
With a fiber optic line, ConocoPhillips said it would be able to increase real time communications and computing between Kuparuk and Anchorage on a range of operations from analyzing production information to improving emergency response.
The proposed line would be mostly buried along existing rights of way. It would cross some 26.8 miles of state land, for which ConocoPhillips is currently requesting an easement, as well as a section of surface land owned by Alyeska Pipeline Service Co.
Two phases of installation Specifically, the line would begin at the Kuparuk River unit Central Processing Facility No. 1 and follow the Oliktok Pipeline across the Kuparuk River and Prudhoe Bay units.
ConocoPhillips expects to install the line in two phases to work within the winter and summer travel restrictions on the North Slope. The first would run from roughly mid-February to late April. The second would run from roughly mid-July to mid-September.
Although ConocoPhillips did not mention the possibility in its current permitting documents, the line to Kuparuk could one day be extended into the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, where ConocoPhillips maintains numerous leases and exploration wells.
Recently, the North Slope Borough began permitting and planning a new fiber optic service into NPR-A designed to accommodate future Chukchi Sea developments.
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