Alaska's tenuous rural fuel distribution: tactical infrastructure improvements needed.

• Author: Bradner, Mike
• Position: OIL & GAS

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Alaskans were transfixed by the drama that played out in Norton Sound in early January, as the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Healy, the nation's only operating icebreaker, cut a path through several hundred miles of ice so the Russian tanker M/T Renda could deliver fuel to Nome. The successful delivery, the first in mid-winter, caught the imagination of the nation, and comparisons were made to the emergency delivery of serum to Nome by dog team to counter an outbreak of infectious disease.

Nome's situation wasn't as serious as had been portrayed in the national media because if it were a true emergency, fuel delivery by air. However, that would have been complex, costly and potentially hazardous because of the large numbers of fuel flights that would have been required. Fuel is routinely supplied by air to a few small villages in rural Alaska, but nothing has been attempted on the scale of supplying the 1.5 million gallons Nome needed, which was ultimately delivered by the Renda.

However, the venture illustrates the tenuousness of the Alaska fuel rural supply network. Western Alaska mainly depends on tugs and barges to make fuel deliveries during summer, which deal routinely with bad weather, shallow water, and tricky winds, tides and currents, often in combination with each other. In many locations there are primitive or nonexistent shore facilities.

WESTERN ALASKA FUEL FLEET

To deal with this, marine fuel suppliers have marshaled a fleet of tugs and barges, some of them very specialized, to take on the seasonal operation. Crowley, the major company in the rural fuel business, employs about 80 in its operations, which generally run from late March through October. One economic problem facing the industry is that much of the equipment is designed for Alaska and can't be easily moved to other places to work, unlike, for example, cruise ships. That means the equipment can only be used for part of the year, and this built-in inefficiency helps drive up fuel costs.

Weather events and delays are a normal part of this business too. Nome's final fuel delivery by barge was blocked by a fierce, hurricane-strength winter storm in the Bering Sea, which created the need for the unprecedented mid-winter delivery. The delayed shipment to Nome captured the nation's attention, but delays of two weeks or more in barge fuel deliveries brought about by fall storms isn't all that unusual.

Here's an illustration of the routine complexities of the rural fuel business that drives up costs. The waters off Kotzebue are shallow. Companies bring fuel in large barges as close to shore as possible, then transfer it to smaller, shallow-draft "lightering" barges to get it to shore. For delivery to small communities...