Alyeska TAPS maintenance: new technology, same level of care.

• Author: Anderson, Tasha
• Position: SPECIAL SECTION: Arctic Oil & Gas - Trans Alaska Pipeline System

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During peak production in Prudhoe Bay, 2 million barrels of oil per day traversed the eight-hundred-mile Trans Alaska Pipeline System (TAPS). In 2016, just over 500,000 barrels per day travel south from the North Slope to Valdez. While that's a quarter of peak production, it is still a staggering amount of oil that crosses over and under many of Alaska's waterways and traverses much of Alaska's breathtaking landscape.

It is absolutely vital for the health of Alaska's environment, people, and industry that the pipeline be vigilantly operated and maintained, and fortunately that is what Alyeska Pipeline Service Company does every minute of each day, now for thirty-nine years.

Rod Hanson is the Senior VP of Operations and Maintenance for Alyeska. He says, "It's important to understand what underpins any pipeline operator's strategy. There are two reasons that top the list as to why we do maintenance: safety and the environment."

The very nature of operating and maintaining the pipeline is hazardous, and Hanson stresses that it's important for Alyeska employees and contract employees that the system is maintained so that "no matter how much oil we're moving, it's a safe system, and no matter how much oil we're moving, it stays in the pipeline and our pipe and equipment are sound."

Summer Work

This summer in June, Alyeska scheduled a thirty-six hour planned maintenance shutdown of TAPS. Hanson says that intentionally shutting down the pipeline for planned work is routine, and sometimes happens several times a year. He says last summer in addition to the thirty-six hour shutdown, TAPS was intentionally shut down for ten hours in May, ten in July, and a twelve-hour period in August. "It's part of our routine approach. There are certain types of work that are safest and best and sometimes only possible when the system is shut down."

He says that was the nature of the work which necessitated the thirty-six hour shutdown. The work performed during the shutdown is planned well in advance, and Hanson says Alyeska coordinates closely with the North Slope producers whenever a shutdown is necessary. "They're coordinated well ahead of time with the producers, and usually they will plan their own maintenance at the same time to minimize impact to production," he says. For the shorter duration events, Alyeska will use crude oil tanks at Pump Station 1 and continue to receive production while maintenance is underway on the TAPS...