Cold Weather: oilfield contractor expands its outlook.

• Author: Tyson, Ray
• Position: Cold Weather Contractors - The New 49ers - Company Profile

To stay afloat in the wake of Alaska's contracting oil industry, Cold Weather Contractors decided it was time to broaden its service base here and to look for business overseas.

Founded by William McLaughlin in 1983, Cold Weather's bread and butter has been constructing and maintaining ice and gravel pads and roads for oil companies on Alaska's frigid North Slope. Its client list included all the major oil companies, and the company's track record for supporting exploratory drilling and other field operations in the Arctic has been impressive.

In 1984, for example, Cold Weather was selected to build the ice roads, a 5,000 foot lighted ice airstrip and a drill pad for Chevron's KIC No. 1, the only exploratory well ever drilled on the now forbidden coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). However, just as many other contractors who serve Alaska's oil industry, Cold Weather is being pinched severely as North America's most prolific oilfield at Prudhoe Bay lapses further into decline, taking with it the massive cash flow that has fueled the state economy since the 1970s.

Adaptability Essential

"There have been a lot of changes on the North Slope in the past two years," notes Barry Perkins, marketing director for Cold Weather. For Alaska's premier ice and gravel road builder, the crowning blow came last year when the company lost a major maintenance contract with Arco Alaska Inc., which operates the Kuparuk River oilfield and the eastern half of Prudhoe Bay. That contract represented about 60 percent to 65 percent of Cold Weather's business.

Says Perkins, "The emphasis of our market is changing. To stay alive, we have to refocus like everyone else. We have to decentralize. We have to look into other markets because the oil industry is not there. I don't think the general population realizes how much work has decreased on the Slope."

Nevertheless, Cold Weather has managed to improve its revenue picture, moving up the New 49ers' ladder of profitability -- from $14.1 million in gross revenues in 1990 to $16.9 last year. Perkins says 1992 represents Cold Weather's year of expansion, adding that the company is looking to increase revenue and its 250-person employment base by 40 percent during the next year to 16 months.

New Operations

Cold Weather is looking to do environmental cleanup at various military sites around the state. Explains Perkins, "It's all in keeping with the trend in industry. It will be good exposure and will...