May 27, 202101:24 To avoid problems with the permafrost, 420 miles of the pipeline were built on an elevated support system that keeps the pipe about 6 feet above the ground. Share. The Alaska Pipeline Project: Safe and Sound - Forbes Industry observers said the annual increase is a positive sign, though it doesnt meaningfully change the long-term slide in Alaska oil production. In its application to the state, Alyeska confirmed thawing permafrost posed a threat. Now is the time to ask whats being done about it, Weimer said, referring to the effect of global warming on pipeline safety. Persily added that as the world transitions away from fossil fuels, there may not be significant demand for natural gas by the time a pipeline is built. In comments submitted to the state, Conoco argued that Oil Searchs plant, combined with emissions from Conocos own infrastructure in the area, would cause air pollution to exceed allowable levels and potentially interfere with Conocos operations in the same area. Disembarking at Alpine. For a few years, until the oil starts flowing, Willow could even have a small negative impact on state revenues. Conoco deferred to Alyeska for comment; Hilcorp and Exxon did not respond to questions about the pipeline. Theres a lot of LNG in the world that is less risky than the Alaska project. However, many of Alaska's oil fields are mature, and in 2022 the state's oil production averaged 437,000 barrels per day, the lowest level since 1976. All rights reserved. Alaska ranks fourth in the nation in natural gas gross withdrawals, most of . Alaskan Pipeline (Alaska) - All You Need to Know BEFORE You Go Feige, the current natural resources commissioner, said her agency is encouraging the two companies to continue negotiating while Oil Searchs permit application is pending. The company, along with Armstrong Energy, discovered the promising Pikka prospect. We look at it as, demand is there. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), an independent agency, has regulatory oversight of Alaska LNG's siting, construction and operation. Thanks for reading Scientific American. All quotes delayed a minimum of 15 minutes. The pipeline is 800 miles long and four feet in diameter. WASHINGTON, April 13 (Reuters) - The Biden administration on Thursday approved exports of liquefied natural gas from the Alaska LNG project that one day could help the United States compete with Russia to ship natural gas from the Arctic to Asia. In homes along the coast that are sinking into the ground, and in telephone poles now tilting from erosion. An ice road leading to the village of Nuiqsut. Is The Alaskan Pipeline Still In Use? - On Secret Hunt Some of the earmark appropriations secured by Alaskas congressional delegation through much of the 2000s drew nationwide scrutiny and provided momentum for a prohibition on earmark funding that lasted roughly a decade before the rule was rescinded by Congress in March. Alaska oil producers squeezed more oil out of the North Slope in 2022 Alyeska is installing approximately 100 free-standing thermosyphons 40 to 60 feet into the ground. Hilcorp has slightly reversed declining oil production at Prudhoe Bay after becoming operator there in 2020, following its acquisition of assets from former Alaska producer BP. When oil began flowing south from . In all, the pipeline has spilled 9,784 barrels of oil, which resulted in $52.7 million in damages and costs, according to the PHMSA records. Driving a ConocoPhillips road that leads to drilling sites. Climate change is, of course, worsening the problem of a thawing permafrost. May 24, 2023. Willow Project, explained: What to know about the Alaska oil-drilling But even as ConocoPhillips gears up to build Willow, it faces complications on a planet that is dangerously warming because of the burning of fossil fuels. But any harm from an oil spill would likely be greater than in most other landscapes because of the fragile nature of the Alaskan land and water. So its the responsibility of the operator to be ahead of the threats, Kuprewicz said. In 30 years of operation the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System has had its share of mishaps. "Our in-state refiners create jet fuel, gasoline, diesel, heating fuel, kerosene, asphalt base oil, marine diesel, turbine fuel, ultra-low sulfur diesel, JP-8, and JP-5," she says. "A lot of our lunch has been eaten by the Russians and Middle Eastern countries like Iraq," he said. But after the Biden administration greenlit the $8 billion Willow project, ConocoPhillips is racing ahead. In a news release, the California-based group Pacific Environment and Alaska-based Cook Inletkeeper said it runs counter to the Biden administrations climate commitments. TAPS is one of the world's largest pipeline systems. According to Salary.com, the median wage for pipeliners is approximately $58,000 per year. You drive down the road and it looks like the pipelines are undulating.. Just as 5G promises to make North Slope energy development more economical, Fuhs sees the new data pipeline as one way to transform the Aleutian Islands into a renewable energy . No one in the world knows how to effectively develop their resources for the benefit of our citizens as well as Alaskans do, Young wrote. Kuukpik doesnt assign blame to either company involved; it just wants to see their dispute resolved, Mack said. Another Canadian trader said regulatory delays and environmental opposition have also made TMX less lucrative for producers than it could have been a few years ago. See here for a complete list of exchanges and delays. Burning all that oil could release nearly 254 million metric tons of carbon emissions. Environmental groups criticized Emanuels support for developing natural gas. On Monday, a federal judge denied their request to block work while they pursue the legal challenge. There are still no grounds on which Russia feels it can extend the Black Sea grain deal, the Kremlin has said. Alaska Cruisetours | Cruise Packages | Norwegian Cruise Line Ukraine war latest: Kremlin denies China warned Putin - Sky News Kavitha George, Alaska Public Media - Anchorage, Despite decades of warning, looming natural gas shortage threatens to drive up Alaska energy prices, Fishing guides at a Petersburg lodge charged with over 50 violations, Alaska News Nightly: Wednesday, May 24, 2023, An Army division in Alaska is combatting high suicide rates with mandatory wellness counseling, Wasilla man missing after his canoe capsized on the Little Susitna, Fire closes Whittier fuel dock and injures 2 people. The administration approved the project Monday despite. There are about 124,000 thermosyphons arrayed along the path of the pipelinea nod from its engineers to the importance of keeping the ground below it frozen. You have pipelines that were built level and are now starting to wobble.. Or maybe it's because the people who work in this room see themselves as undercover crime-fighters, like Batman because. On the snowy tundra at the northernmost tip of the United States, more than two dozen yellow dump trucks wait on a glistening ice pad. To keep the permafrost sturdy, ConocoPhillips uses thermosyphons, tall metal tubes filled with a refrigerant that are partly buried in ground to keep it frozen. Brigham A. McCown. If you can get Willow and Pikka on line, then you will see some substantial increases in not just oil production but in revenue to the state, Persily said. Leak is latest of Alaska's pipeline woes. Cold weather gear at the Kuukpik Corporation hotel. But last month, a news outlet in Australia home of the projects new owner, Santos Ltd. reported that the company has put its 51% stake in Pikka up for sale. Riding in a van across the blindingly white territory, Mr. Dunn and five other ConocoPhillips employees said that they understood that fossil fuels are heating the planet and that they wanted to be part of the transition to clean energy. Sam Kunaknana, right, in Nuiqsut with his girlfriend, Ren Opie, who was preparing caribou meat to make jerky. The project, for which exports were first approved by the administration of Donald Trump, has been opposed by environmental groups. We grew up without hardly anything, Mr. Lampe said. State level lawmakers consumed by navigating the pandemic and the states structural budget problems have spent little time evaluating the most recent Alaska LNG funding scheme since it was first publicized but the federal subsidy request was met with skepticism in the one Senate hearing that covered the topic. Build the strongest argument relying on authoritative content, attorney-editor expertise, and industry defining technology. Source: Energy Information Administration. Alaska Wants to Let an Oil Giant Keep Secrets From Its Own People . Communications Pipeline to Alternative Energy - Alaska Business Magazine REUTERS/Jennifer Gauthier/File Photo. May 25, 2023 by Kavitha George, Alaska Public Media Share: The trans-Alaska Pipeline runs alongside the Dalton Highway near the Toolik Field Station on June 9, 2017, in the North Slope Borough. When do you get off fossil fuels? said Abigail Dillen, the president of Earthjustice, which is leading the lawsuit against the project. Alaska has that story, he says: "Alaska, by geologic dumb luck, has a great carbon sequestration basin in Cook Inlet. In 2001 a man . A segment of the trans-Alaska pipeline photographed along the Richardson Highway between Glennallen and Delta Junction on May 13, 2020. The state may also receive a share of federal revenues in grants and other funding. By sequencing a larger region of the rRNA gene operons, the limitations and biases of sequencing small portions can be removed, allowing for more accurate classification . Exclusive news, data and analytics for financial market professionals, Reporting by Nia Williams in British Columbia, additional reporting by Florence Tan in Singapore; Editing by David Gregorio, Saudi Arabia says new oil cuts show teamwork with Russia is strong, Russia bans tiny U.S.-based NGO for "sabotaging" vast gas pipeline, Focus: South African food producers warn of higher prices as infrastructure crumbles, Oil rises ahead of US holiday demand indicators, Maruti Suzuki goes upmarket in India with new seven seater, Moderna agrees deal in China with view to developing mRNA medicines, Lamborghini sells out combustion engine models - WELT, Audi to unveil electric vehicle manufacturing plans in Mexico -sources, Chinese automakers to take majority of home market for first time - forecast. Caribou crossings: the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System, conservation, and The Biden administration undertook an environmental review of Alaska LNG, concluding it has economic and international security benefits and that opponents had failed to show the exports were not in the "public interest.". The purpose of this project is to protect the integrity of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline (mainline) from permafrost degradation,the companys applicationsaid. The answers are always different. Several economists said prices would need to be about $30 per barrel for ConocoPhillips to profit from Willow. Some studies suggest the. Dunleavy spokesman Corey Young wrote in an emailed response to questions about lobbying efforts for the project from the administration that the governor has advocated for the gas line to elected leaders nationwide. We used to be like them, hate the oil companies, Mr. Sielak, a laborer who compacts gravel, said, referring to the projects opponents. Maybe it's the lack of windows. Browse an unrivalled portfolio of real-time and historical market data and insights from worldwide sources and experts. The troubled C$30.9 billion ($23.5 billion) TMX project, bought by the Canadian government in 2018 to ensure it got built, is finally nearing completion more than a decade after it was first proposed as an expanded gateway to Asia. Frank Richards, president of Alaska-owned AGDC, said the company will review the 51-page decision as it develops the project, which will "provide Alaskans and U.S. allies with a significant source of low-emissions, responsibly produced energy consistent with international environmental priorities.". The construction mode and method of pipe support are designed to maintain the integrity of the pipeline and minimize impacts to the environment.. In response, the Alaska Department of Natural Resources has approved the use of about 100 thermosyphonstubes that suck heat out of permafrostto keep the frozen slope in place and prevent further damage to the pipelines support structure. [EPA fines Hilcorp $180K for methane leaks, reporting violations in Alaska]. Spills have ranged from less . The governor will continue to fight for Alaska resource projects including Alaska LNG as federal legislative opportunities develop and evolve. Mike Dunleavy convened energy leaders in Anchorage this week for the second annual Alaska Sustainable Energy Conference, aimed at highlighting new opportunities for energy in the state. The frames that hold. You cant see it day-by-day, but year-by-year you notice these pipelines arent straight anymore, he said. The expanded pipeline will transport mostly heavy oil, said Skip York, chief energy strategist at Turner, Mason & Company, and the strongest demand will likely come from refineries in southern California that are set up to process heavy sour crude. Ive been working 40-something years, he said. Many oil field workers have shifts that run for weeks or months. Synergies between Pikka and the Kuparuk field would likely lower Conocos construction costs compared to Oil Search, said Janet Weiss, a former top BP executive in Alaska. Hes been a reporter in Alaska for nearly a decade, with stints at the Anchorage Daily News and Alaska Public Media. Sitting in the cafeteria on a recent Wednesday (Steak Night at the Kuukpik) oil workers from California, Oklahoma and other parts of Alaska said they were excited by the years of employment promised by the project, known as Willow. 2023 Atigun Awards spotlight, Integrity: Joey Selby - Alyeska Pipeline Causes of the spills range from breaks in corroded pipe to equipment failure and operator error. They lived in tents until permanent housing was built and recalled the years without flush toilets. Access unmatched financial data, news and content in a highly-customised workflow experience on desktop, web and mobile. FERC approved construction in 2020. Many of the pipelines in Alaska were designed decades ago, accounting for the permafrost projections that are now far short of the reality in which annual temperatures are soaring and thousands of square miles of permafrost are thawing. DeRuyter, who emphasizes he is not an engineer and cannot comment on the potential threat to the structural integrity of the sagging pipelines, said his assessment is based on his observations. Most Alaska Native groups see Willow as an economic engine. The state is heating uptwice as fast as the global average, which is driving the thawing of permafrost that the oil industry must keep frozen to maintain the infrastructure that allows it to extract more of the fossil fuels that cause the warming. A cemetery where whale bones mark the graves of whaling captains. The section of shifting Trans-Alaska Pipeline is 57 miles northwest of Fairbanks near the Dalton Highway in the central part of the state, where mean annual winter temperature has warmed more than eight degrees Fahrenheit since 1949, accordingto data kept by the Alaska Climate Research Center. Trans Mountain's original pipeline currently ships around 300,000 bpd of mainly light crude to the U.S. West Coast, with BP's (BP.L) Cherry Point refinery and HF Sinclair Corp's (DINO.N) Puget Sound refinery among the main customers for Canadian imports, according to U.S. Energy Information Administration data. ConocoPhillips has about a month to take the first step in the Willow project, which is to open a gravel mine and construct a gravel road, before spring temperatures melt the ice roads, making the tundra swampy and impassable for construction vehicles. A ConocoPhillips oil drilling site glowing at dusk, seen from Nuiqsut. Conoco responded with its own proposal that could have required Oil Search to pay more than $600 million over a 30-year period, or more than $20 million a year, Oil Search said. Western sanctions on Russian crude following its invasion of Ukraine have upended those plans. 20 Alaska was among the top five oil-producing states for many years. Weimer said this incident should trigger discussions between regulators and the industry about how to safeguard pipelines from the effects of thawing permafrost and other climate dangers. September 21, 2022 / 11:54 AM / AP Nearly every single Alaskan got a financial windfall amounting to more than $3,000 Tuesday, the day the state began distributing payments from Alaska's. People stopped by Nuiqsuts one-room post office to chat, then hustled back to their pickups to avoid the whipping, frosty winds. By late January AGDC had identified likely lead parties for the North Slope gas treatment plant and pipeline, and corporation officials were working to get the attention of a firm to lead development of and own the LNG plant, which accounts for roughly half of the overall $38 billion Alaska LNG price tag, Richards said at the time. Biden admin greenlights LNG exports from Alaska project Eli Saslow, who writes narrative features, relied on court records, police reports and dozens of in-person interviews to report this story in Oklahoma City. The feuding between the two companies has frustrated one stakeholder: Kuukpik Corp., the Alaska Native village corporation whose shareholders have ties to the nearby Iupiaq village of Nuiqsut. Screen for heightened risk individual and entities globally to help uncover hidden risks in business relationships and human networks. In remarks on Tuesday, Emanuel argued that exporting Alaskas gas could offer energy stability to parts of Asia, plus generate thousands of jobs at home. ConocoPhillips Willow field awaits a contested permitting decision from the Biden administration before construction can begin. Maruti Suzuki, India's biggest automaker, is looking to break into the premium car segment with its new seven seater, as a growing number of buyers opt for bigger, feature-packed cars. An above-ground section of the trans-Alaska pipeline in the North Slope Borough. Riverboat cruise and city tour of Fairbanks including a stop at the Trans-Alaska Oil Pipeline. Email him: elwood.brehmer@alaskajournal.com. The Alaska pipeline is an amazing structure that carries oil from wells in the very far north of Alaska down to the ice-free port in Valdez, Alaska, where tankers pick up and transport the oil. It underlines what has been said over the past number of years, as far as Alaskas North Slope becoming less and less of an attractive investment.. A street after sunset in the village of Utqiagvik. While the thawing and subsidence are usually too gradual and incremental to draw attention, the result is increasingly obvious, he said. Alaska's next big North Slope oil project is mired in a feud with Alaskans receive over $3,000 in state oil-wealth payment checks (Photo provided by Repsol). Rosemary Ahtuangaruak, the mayor of Nuiqsut and an opponent of the Willow project. Four years ago, BP sold its majority share in the pipeline, known as the Trans Alaska Pipeline System, to Hilcorp Energy Company. Despite its name, the reserve is an important habitat for migratory birds, caribou and brown bears, among other species. Its not yet to the level of panic, but it is an issue that has to be considered, he said. Its been just days since the Biden administration approved an $8 billion project to drill for oil in the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska, the nations single largest expanse of untouched wilderness. Biden nixes Keystone XL permit, halts Arctic refuge leasing