Trans-Alaska Pipeline System - Origins

Origins

Iñupiat people on the North Slope of Alaska had mined oil-saturated peat for possibly thousands of years, using it as fuel for heat and light. Whalers who stayed at Point Barrow saw the substance the Iñupiat called pitch and recognized it as petroleum. Charles Brower, a whaler who settled at Barrow and operated trading posts along the arctic coast, directed geologist Alfred Hulse Brooks to oil seepages at Cape Simpson and Fish Creek in the far north of Alaska, east of the village of Barrow. Brooks' report confirmed the observations of Thomas Simpson, an officer of the Hudson's Bay Company who first observed the seepages in 1836. Similar seepages were found at the Canning River in 1919 by Ernest de Koven Leffingwell. Following the First World War, as the United States Navy converted its ships from coal to oil, the importance of securing a stable supply of oil became important to the U.S. government. Accordingly, President Warren G. Harding established by executive order a series of Naval Petroleum Reserves (NPR-1 through -4) across the United States. These reserves were areas thought to be rich in oil and set aside for future drilling by the U.S. Navy. Naval Petroleum Reserve No. 4 was sited in Alaska's far north, just south of Barrow, and encompassed 23,000,000 acres (93,078 km2). Other Naval Petroleum Reserves were embroiled in controversy over government corruption in the Teapot Dome Scandal.

The petroleum reserve lay dormant until the Second World War provided an impetus to explore new oil prospects. Starting in 1944, the U.S. Navy funded oil exploration near Umiat Mountain, on the Colville River in the Brooks Range. Surveyors from the U.S. Geological Survey spread across the petroleum reserve and worked to determine its extent until 1953, when the Navy suspended funding for the project. The USGS found several small oil fields, most notably the Umiat Oil Field, but none were cost-effective to develop.

Four years after the Navy suspended its survey, Richfield Oil Corporation (later Atlantic Richfield and ARCO) drilled an enormously successful oil well near the Swanson River in southern Alaska, near Kenai. The resulting Swanson River Oil Field was Alaska's first commercially producing oil field, and it spurred the exploration and development of many others. By 1965, five oil and 11 natural gas fields had been developed. This success and the previous Navy exploration of its petroleum reserve led petroleum engineers to the conclusion that the area of Alaska north of the Brooks Range surely held large amounts of oil and gas. The problems came from the area's remoteness and harsh climate. It was estimated that between 200,000,000 barrels (32,000,000 m3) and 500,000,000 barrels (79,000,000 m3) of oil would have to be recovered to make a North Slope oil field commercially viable.

In 1967, Atlantic Richfield (ARCO) began detailed survey work in the Prudhoe Bay area. By January 1968, reports began circulating that natural gas had been discovered by a discovery well. On March 12, 1968, an Atlantic Richfield drilling crew hit paydirt. A discovery well began flowing at the rate of 1,152 barrels (183.2 m3) of oil per day. On June 25, ARCO announced that a second discovery well likewise was producing oil at a similar rate. Together, the two wells confirmed the existence of the Prudhoe Bay Oil Field. The new field contained more than 25 billion barrels (4.0×10^9 m3) of oil, making it the largest in North America and the 18th largest in the world.

The problem soon became how to develop the oil field and ship product to U.S. markets. Pipeline systems represent a high initial cost but lower operating costs, but no pipeline of the length needed had yet been constructed. Several other solutions were offered. Boeing proposed a series of 12-engine tanker aircraft to transport oil from the field. General Dynamics proposed a line of tanker submarines for travel beneath the Arctic ice cap, and another group proposed extending the Alaska Railroad to Prudhoe Bay. Ice breaking oil tankers were proposed to transport the oil directly from Prudhoe Bay.

In 1969, Humble Oil and Refining Company sent a specially fitted oil tanker, the SS Manhattan, to test the feasibility of transporting oil via ice-breaking tankers to market. The Manhattan was fitted with an ice-breaking bow, powerful engines, and hardened propellers before successfully traveling the Northwest Passage from the Atlantic Ocean to the Beaufort Sea. During the voyage, the ship suffered damage to several of its cargo holds, which flooded with seawater. Wind-blown ice forced the Manhattan to change its intended route from the M'Clure Strait to the smaller Prince of Wales Strait. It was escorted back through the Northwest Passage by a Canadian Coast Guard icebreaker, the CCGS John A. Macdonald. Although the Manhattan successfully transited the Northwest Passage again in the summer of 1970, the concept was considered too risky. A pipeline was thus the only viable system for transporting the oil to the nearest port free of pack-ice, almost 800 miles (1,300 km) away at Valdez.