Progress Report, Alyeska Pipeline -- 1975

the trans-alaska pipeline as of mid September 1975 is 29 percent complete and by the end of the year the 800-mile long pipeline is expected to be hafted for Alyeska pipeline service company the firm that was formed by eight major oil companies to fill this one freezing $1 pipeline this is a significant step for the transportation of crude oil from Alaska's North Slope to the southern ice report of Valdez in the first year of actual construction following the filling the 360 mile long haul load from the Yukon River to Prudhoe Bay 29 pipeline at pump station camps were completed as well as headquarters facilities in Hank the first pipe with late March 27th 1975 the summer that followed with the first full construction season for pipeline work and much of it was a learning experience sameer coordination but 20,000 person workforce strung out over 800 miles inland the fight is lifted by a siphon tracker seven different welding passes are May 14th joint a separate welding crew is used for he's been making it possible to link more than a mile of pipe a day the by design covered with gravel and dirt and compacted to support all of this effort along the pipeline millions of tons of cargo supply barge rail air and overland to enable crossing of the Yukon River to air cushion transporters known as hover Barker's very up to 8 trucks at a time a bridge of course here is now being built jointly by the state of Alaska and Alyeska and is expected to be ready for traffic by the end of the year [Music] I built pipelines in the lower 48 South America Middle East Canada for cross-country pipeline this is definitely the most complex one that has ever been - it certainly has been given a much greater degree of design consideration than any pipeline I've ever been associated with [Applause] [Music] the people who build pipelines are hardworking individuals who know their trade enjoy their trade enjoy the outdoor work and the hard work that goes with it and keep after it one of the major deviations from normal pipeline construction practice is the construction of the right-of-way or work pad as it's called in this pipeline the work pad is about 55 feet wide and constitutes the limits within which we must work the work pad is a working strip of selected granular materials overlaying the natural Tundra quite similar to a road in fact the way the pad is built it would be similar to a secondary dirt road in the lower 48 the purpose of the work that is to permit an access route for equipment and people from one part of the plant line to another no piece of equipment ever gets off use will succeed in thickness and all the material has to be hauled in [Music] [Applause] before the WordPad can move forward right away has to be cleared by the brush crew the timber is hand cleared and cut to fall within the limits of the right-of-way [Applause] [Music] [Applause] one of the unique construction problems we had to deal with and this trans-alaska project was the existence of permafrost or permanently frozen ground we couldn't bury the pipe in the conventional way throughout the whole line part of the line had to be built above the ground to preserve the permafrost depending upon the location permafrost can go down hundreds of feet so in these areas of permafrost it's essential that we go above the ground the vertical support members or BSM were designed for this project to carry the line in the above the ground mode far enough above the surface than any temperature that might be generated by the flowing crude in the pipeline will minimize any thawing in the ground itself are made up of eighteen inch pipe pieces of which there are over 13,000 in our section each one is drilled and sand slurry or grouted in or driven depending on the subsurface conditions to allow proper expansion contraction of the line and to accommodate potential sites move the above-ground segments are installed in the zigzag or trapezoidal path control of the movement of the pipe the line is anchored between trapezoidal segments this pattern then permits the line to actually move on these supports to accommodate changes in temperature the thermal units are placed in selected pile to aid in preserving the permafrost around the pile [Music] we use a lantern a lot of pouches and we run them under our pressure we try to maintain around 240 to 250 pounds are pressured that's the linemen joints up truth bring the hollow out if the joints a little big it's a bit a little bit a grade will it - it's nearly perfect therefore be the end from what we call a string of me the first pass was here we used wire I think it's the best well there is I'm sure price does they spent world of money perfect like to have of the man course we have the best welders in the work this is for six - all right well man that will evolve the more passes you have to make other than the strangle me they'll have to make five passes before it's completed which that includes a hog pass and a feller and we'll have to make three more passes before the cap unlike the above-ground VSM structure our ditching techniques for burying the pipeline are pretty standard we've tried ice saws and special ditching pains and below ground frozen sections without much success but drilling and shooting of the permafrost and excavation with back holes has worked pretty well for us right now we're working a stretch between Alton Road and Moose Creek one we have very types of soil conditions here we have an old stream channel with blocks of roots and stumps and also a lot of water here water table is about six to seven feet down to the surface we're moving north we're making good progress before the pipe is lowered into the ditch it is coated with a tape material to protect it from corrosion while the side booms cradle the pipe beside the ditch there's a sequence of cleaning and heating the pipe before the tape is applied an open flame Peter first dries the pipe this is followed by a cleaning machine consisting of a series of rotating wire brushes which clean any foreign matter from the surface of the pipe this is followed by a series of radiant heaters which preheat the pipe to a temperature required for the application of the tape they come up that way and I gotta get back you know or moving around that our greater becoming from the ditch this afternoon that we should they'll take their loans you got your right clothes to wear there's no problem oh but you can't haul them maneuver around for some time you may take one man some time it takes to me twenty are to report no it's not too bad if you two doing something all the time if you're standing still or something it's really cold but you know actually gets about four to pitching the lowest not bad as long as you're moving really fast because you stay still you brings your battle nothing [Music] construction of the trans-alaska pipeline is almost complete by the end of 1976 all 800 miles of mainline pipe were installed and work was nearing the final stages of the several pump stations along the route and at the Valdez tanker terminal Alyeska pipeline service company officials say the progress made during 1976 assures that oil will flow from Prudhoe Bay to Valdez on schedule in mid 1977 as late as September there still was uncertainty that all the pipe could be in place by years and with the Alaskan winter about to begin some of the most challenging obstacles on the project remained the be surmounted getting through attic and past and Brooks mountain range and through Thompson pass and keystone canyon in the Chugach mountain [Music] the first victory in the race with winter involved a Tagen pass pipeline reaches its highest point at 4800 feet for more than a mile through this remote mountain pass special designs were necessary because of unstable soils and Avalanche dangers the ditch was lined with concrete for extra strength and the pipe was encased in an insulated box make sure the surrounding soil remains stable II froze in' and hot oil begins flowing through the lines another set of challenges faced workers in the Chugach mountains deep snow commonly persists right up to summer here the 1976 push got underway early last spring route from snow packed keystone canyon and Thompson pass along with coal dust black and snow absorb more heat and melted faster providing an earlier start for construction crews the keystone canyon stretch was especially difficult because the pipeline had to be buried in steep rocky slopes high up on the canyon wall instead of on the canyon floor where the going would have been easier this tougher route was chosen to avoid disruption of traffic on the bridge sixty percent grades and sheer rock outcrops were encountered in the area [Music] nearly two full construction seasons went into preparing the four miles of fixture the canyon snow was threatening to extend the job into yet a third season and workers finished the installation in late September [Music] [Music] just north of Keystone was the last and perhaps the greatest challenge to the pipe liners the south face of Thompson pass [Music] here special construction techniques were needed to ferry equipment pipe and backfill material up the long slopes suite is 45 degrees [Music] above ground line is designed in a zigzag alignment so the pipeline has flexibility and will accommodate thermal expansion and contraction of the steel pipe work remaining in 1977 includes completing insulation of evoke ground line [Music] installed by a specially designed device called a manipulator the insulation will keep the warm oil from getting too cold and sluggish should the system be shut down for a lengthy period during winter heat pipes were installed in many vertical support members for the elevated line these thermal devices automatically draw heat out of the ground in winter transfer to the atmosphere will keep the permafrost around the supports stable II frozen through the summer season [Music] twelve major pipeline bridges were completed during 1976 including two cables suspension bridges the longest suspension span is this one extending 1200 feet across the Tanana River about 75 miles south of Fairbanks [Music] assisting in some of the weld repairs was an unusual machine the pipe liners called Snoopy propelled by a 40 horsepower diesel engine with an exhaust elimination system the 10-foot long vehicle carries a welder and his helper through the pipe Snoopy comes complete with a two-way radio in its own power system for welding and lighting eliminating the need for cables pipelining generally takes place in some remote place seldom do you ever find the job close to a nice metropolitan area it seems it's always someplace a long way from home so in order to pursue their trade pipe liners have to be trenchant they have to go where the work is and the work is generally someplace other than where they'd like to be the work is hard the hours are long and the life is lonely but they do it because it's their livelihood and they're good at it and I suppose most of them really wouldn't be happy doing anything else when the oil starts flowing from Prudhoe Bay to Valdez this year it will have been almost a decade since the oil was discovered under Alaska's North Slope during these years thousands of people and machines and involved in what has turned out to be the largest privately financed construction project [Music] Oh

Channel: Alyeska Pipeline

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Length: 17min 23sec (1043 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 12 2017