Fairbanks Module Construction Increases.

• Author: JONES, PATRICIA
• Position: Brief Article - Statistical Data Included

H.C. Price Co., the first contractor to build North Slope oil field modules using Fairbanks area resources more than 10 years ago, is back in the fabrication business.

Up to 60 construction workers, mostly hired by Price out of Fairbanks union halls, are currently building 12 truckable modules for the Northstar project, a contract worth up to $4 million for the construction firm. (The modules interlock into one unit, which will house grind and inject components.)

While that's only a fraction of the $300 million that BP Exploration (Alaska) Inc. will spend this year on developing the Northstar oil deposit, H.C. Price is glad to get back into the business.

"There is no reason why modules can't be built here," said Dave Matthews, Alaska general manager for H.C. Price, while sitting in a narrow Atco office on the nine-acre work site at Universal Welding in North Pole. "This is a good geographic location [ldots]; we're very confident with the resources that are here."

Work at the North Pole fabrication site will peak in late May, and by mid-June motorists on the Richardson Highway will be able to see the 55-foot steel structure cube jutting skyward.

After assembling the module in June and checking all operating systems, crews will dismantle it and prepare the structure to be trucked north to Prudhoe Bay in early August.

From there, the structure will be barged to the Northstar Island and reassembled.

In the Fairbanks area, H.C. Price pioneered the concept of building the interlocking steel structures, called modules, which house various production components needed to run North Slope oil fields.

Back in 1989, H.C. Price landed a BP contract to build three truckable or mini-modules, sized to fit on a semi tractor-trailer flat bed, for the Hurl State Well Pad. At the time, oil industry executives heralded the deal as a start for a new fabrication industry that might help boost the Fairbanks economy.

But similar type of work that followed in later years tended to go to large non-union contractors in the Anchorage area, Matthews and others in the industry noted.

"They increased their market share by building bigger shops and lowering their costs per unit," Matthews said. As a union contractor, Price"[ldots]believes that we can achieve greater productivity by bringing a higher wage to the job."

H.C. Price isn't the only Interior-based contractor that believes in the value of union hire for large-scale construction projects.

Houston Contracting Co...