Alaska LNG pipeline building a choreography of coordinated steps: this update, provided by the Kenai Peninsula Borough mayor's office, is part of an ongoing effort to help keep the public informed about the Alaska LNG project.

• Author: Persily, Larry
• Position: OIL & GAS

The Alaska LNG project is a planning and coordinating effort of immense proportions. Not surprising when you consider that the pipeline construction alone requires piecing together about 115,000 40-foot-long sections in precise order, in rough terrain, in remote locations--and with 446 waterbody crossings.

That's 447 if you count the almost 30 miles across Cook Inlet to reach the proposed liquefaction plant at Nikiski.

The project teams are mapping out every detail of building 870 miles of pipeline to move natural gas from Point Thomson to Prudhoe Bay (about 63 miles of 32-inch-diameter pipe) and on to Nikiski (about 807 miles of 42-inch pipe). The right amount of pipe has to be at the right place at the right time with the right equipment for welding, digging, and pipe laying during two years of construction, and that's after two years of prep work to build construction camp and compressor station pads, storage yards, clear rights of way, develop gravel sources, and create access roads.

No easy task when you're moving and frequently relocating 9,000 pieces of equipment that would be used to build the mostly buried pipeline. Still more equipment would be used to build the North Slope gas treatment plant and the liquefied natural gas plant and marine terminal at Nikiski. An estimated 5,000 to 7,000 workers would be on the pipeline crews, with all of them living in work camps. Several thousand more are expected on the job at the gas treatment plant and the LNG plant, with the project estimating 15,000 workers total.

Pipe storage yards would be sited about every 18 miles along the route, with the project requiring about 18 million cubic yards of gravel for access roads, pipeline right of way, and compressor station pads. The project would use existing pads wherever practical.

Think of it as a choreography of engineers, geologists, biologists, environmental specialists, and logistics planners. Everyone has a role and everything has its place. And it's all synchronized for efficiency, cost savings, and to limit environmental impact.

"Pipeline construction is a moving assembly line," an Alaska LNG team member said.

Information Sharing at Workshops

Almost two dozen Alaska LNG team members met with nearly three dozen federal and state regulatory agency personnel June 24-25,2015, in Anchorage to share preliminary plans for pipeline construction and waterbody crossings and to listen to how and where the plans might be improved.

It's not only...