Manufacturing oilfield modules locally: keeping busy in the downturn.

• Author: Harrington, Susan
• Position: OIL & GAS

Assorted types of oilfield production modules are constantly being built in Alaska and shipped and installed to support existing facility expansion and new development. CH2M is one company keeping busy in the downturn by building, shipping, and installing truckable modules. Tucked away in an industrial section of Anchorage, CH2M's fabrication plant manufactures modules for big players all over Alaska. They've been doing it for years, the count is more than 800 so far, and in February they were finishing up a blast resistant module (BRM) for one of the petroleum giants. Work starts this month on production modules for Greater Mooses Tooth 1 (GMT1) that will be shipped next year for installation northwest of Nuiqsut in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska.

Compact Office

The five-module control room complex being manufactured in Anchorage for an existing facility will be trucked to the North Slope later this year, most likely by Carlile or STR Alaska, trucking firms CH2M uses that have specialized equipment to move the large and heavy modules.

CH2M's Anchorage Fabrication Facility Manager Mark Mobley says the BRM's they're doing are control room/office modules. The five-module complex will serve as an employee haven and, though large, Mobley says these modules are getting smaller and simpler.

This one will go on an expanded gravel pad at a Prudhoe Bay separation facility on the North Slope and sit on pilings, seventy-five in all, though some will support the elevated walkway connecting the BRM to the rest of the facility.

The BRM is meant "to provide a safe location for workers to perform non-operational tasks such as training, breaks, meetings, and management/administrative tasks," per the permit application to fill about two acres of wetlands with about 15,000 cubic yards of clean gravel.

Senior Proposal Manager Mary Jo Mrochinski says changes in the approach to safety are driving the manufacture of the BRM office complex. "Basically, they are having employees shelter in place in case of any kind of emergency--that is why they are shifting to that model design," she says.

"That design" is a self-contained building with an administrative support area, several private offices, a telecommunications and remote operations center with numerous large screens across the walls, individual computer stations, meeting rooms, kitchen, break room, first aid station, bathrooms, rooms to house the electrical panels and HVAC equipment, water and wastewater...