On Track at Kenai's LNG Plant.

• Author: PREVOST, JIM

Thirty years after pioneering the export of a clean, efficient source of energy to the Orient, the Phillips/Marathon Kenai LNG Plant remains the nation's only LNG export facility.

For the past three decades, as the fortunes of Alaska turned according to the noisy gyrations of the volatile petroleum trade, one enterprise within the oil and gas industry has quietly established itself as a rock-steady member of the North Kenai community. In the process, it has set remarkable standards for safety, efficiency and continuous operation.

Since the Phillips/Marathon Kenai LNG Plant was brought online in June 1969, the facility has never been shut down for any reason other than routine maintenance. It has never missed a scheduled shipment and no worker has ever suffered a serious injury on the job.

"This has been an exceptional operation for 30 years," said Larry Porter, superintendent of administration, laboratory and shipping at the plant. "We went a million man-hours totally accident-free-it took us 13 years to get that. Then, a couple years ago, a guy took a long step and ripped a muscle. It was officially an accident, but it could have happened anywhere."

First to Asia

In the exploration frenzy that followed Richfield Oil's 1957 discovery of oil at Swanson River on the Kenai Peninsula, Marathon discovered its Kenai gas field in 1959. Phillips was the main partner involved in the discovery of the North Cook Inlet field three years later.

At that time, the world's first large-scale, commercial LNG trade was in the planning stages. Business and industry leaders around the globe took note in 1964 when Great Britain and then France began importing the liquefied product from Algeria via tanker ships.

Among those observers were executives of several Japanese utilities. They were hard-pressed to satisfy their nation's rapidly growing energy needs without adding to its already dangerous air pollution. Eager to switch from coal to cleaner-burning LNG, the Japanese began actively searching for a supplier as soon as British Gas proved the feasibility of the LNG tanker method of supplying markets unreachable by pipeline.

In spring 1967, Phillips and Marathon signed a joint sales agreement with Tokyo Electric Power Co. and Tokyo Gas Co. and embarked on a $200 million project to provide the utilities more than a million barrels of LNG per month.

The Tyonek offshore production platform was built for Phillips in Japan and towed to its location in Upper Cook.

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