North Pole fabricator favors Alaska Highway natural gas pipeline route

First of series, Universal Welding owner Tom Zimmerman discusses pipeline project

Patricia Jones

PNA Contributing Writer

This is the first in a series of 12 informal interviews about the proposed natural gas pipeline project conducted with owners and managers of businesses located along a portion of the proposed “Alaska Highway” route, which actually runs from Alaska’s North Slope to Alberta and then to Lower 48 markets. These interviews begin with North Pole, Alaska and end in Dawson Creek, Yukon. Next week we’ll visit with a new equipment rental business in Delta Junction.

Twin giant candy canes, 30 feet tall and weighing 5,000 pounds, guard the entrance of Universal Welding, located off the Richardson Highway just outside of this Interior Alaska community.

“We’re pretty proud of them,” said Tom Zimmerman, president and owner of the North Pole-based welding and fabrication shop, one of several Interior businesses that has completed work for Alaska’s oil industry in recent years.

An Alaska natural gas pipeline project would likely benefit his company, regardless of which route is selected by producers.

“We’ve done enough work with major oil field service companies,” he said. “We might not get any work directly on the pipeline building from the oil companies, but we would from their contractors.”

Yet he’s emphatic about his support only for the pipeline route running along the Alaska Highway. The proposed route of crossing the Beaufort Sea, then running south through the Mackenzie River Valley is “…DOA. Don’t support it at all,” Zimmerman said.

“I’d much rather forgo any kind of business we might see from the over-the-top route, and not have it,” he added. “It’s not in the best interest of the state.”

That’s because he believes the Alaska Highway pipeline route will provide more benefits to local residents and businesses, with less environmental impact.

“You are running pipe down a corridor the whole way — the Haul Road, the Richardson, the Alcan are all established,” he said. “If it doesn’t come down the utilidor, you wouldn’t have the spin-off industries that otherwise would utilize natural gas.”

Locals, including himself, hope to benefit from lower heating and electric costs, with the use of natural gas.

Right now, he spends about $1,500 a month to heat his offices and his 12,000 square-foot fabrication shop, where crews have built truckable modules for North Slope projects in recent years. “Gas would be nice, if it were cheaper,” he said.

State revenue from gas sales could also help Alaska’s economy directly. Indirectly, permanent jobs in the necessary infrastructure and potential auxiliary development that accompanies the natural gas pipeline would also be of help.

“We didn’t have the oil refinery here without the oil pipeline,” Zimmerman said. “It doesn’t take much of a mental giant to see the benefits of a domestic gas line.”