Frozen byways offer vanishing footprint

Use of ice-based infrastructure minimizes impact of winter exploration activity on environmentally sensitive North Slope

Rose Ragsdale

For Petroleum News

June 20, 2007, marked the 30th anniversary of the first barrels of North Slope crude flowing down the 800-mile trans-Alaska oil pipeline from Prudhoe Bay to Valdez. Looking back, it is clear that the role of technology has been paramount in the progress operators and contractors have made in improving the efficiency and lessening the impact of their operations on the Arctic environment. In a series of seven articles, Petroleum News will report on some of the technologies developed by the dedicated and innovative men and women who work on the North Slope. These articles will be followed by “30 Strong,” a full color magazine celebrating three decades of North Slope oil production.

Ice roads, winter byways that disappear with breakup in spring, are efficient and indispensable aids to oil and gas exploration on the North Slope. These ribbons of frozen water have paved the way for explorers to venture into remote areas of the Arctic since the 1950s when the Royal Canadian Mounte....

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