Oil and gas construction services companies: they are the little-known companies on the oil fields, but the producers couldn't do their jobs without them.

• Author: Campbell, Melissa
• Position: Industry Overview

We've all heard of the big oil producers like British Petroleum and ConocoPhillips. But what some don't realize is that producers don't do it alone. To do their jobs well, big oil calls on the bit players.

Alaska's oil field construction service companies do more than just put up a building so the drillers will have a place to sleep. Oil fields, especially those on the North Slope, are essentially isolated, self-contained cities; ones that need to be particularly concerned with the environment.

Think of everything it takes to build and run a city: the buildings, the rigs, the transportation and communications systems, the utilities, etc. And keep in mind that these oil fields are located at the top of the world.

These companies build the roads, the pipes and the highly specialized equipment needed to operate the drilling rigs, also built by construction service companies. They even build the sewer systems.

Producers spend money to own leases to extract oil, said Larry Houle, general manager of the Alaska Support Industry Alliance, but they hire contractors to do the work. And it's a lot of work.

The oil and gas industry is the largest non-governmental industry in Alaska (see sidebar, page 26). The Alliance is a trade association that represents those businesses that support the producers. It has 420 members that rep resent 30,000 employees throughout Alaska.

"We operate in Alaska, which is an adversarial environment with extreme cold, permafrost," Houle said. "It's a long way from the marketplace. Alaska companies have a high level of expertise when it comes to pipeline, and oil and gas development in arctic conditions."

Dowland-Bach is one of those companies that few outside the industry know much about. President Lynn Johnson can still laugh when people ask about his group's parent company. For nearly 30 years, Dowland-Bach's headquarters has resided in the heart of Anchorage.

Named for composer Johann Sebastian Bach and lutist John Dowland, the company was founded in 1974 to meet the needs for fail-safe well-head and towline protection for Prudhoe Bay. Several thousand wellhead control systems have since been installed in various extreme locations, from Alaska's North Slope to the jungles of South America, as well as in Europe and Russia.

Dowland-Bach is noted for its fine-tuned, Underwriters Laboratories (UL)-listed, high-pressure control systems and stainless steel boxes that hold them. But the company also manufactures custom...