Protecting Alaska's infrastructure: oil and gas industries are prime targets.

• Author: Orr, Vanessa
• Position: Oil & Gas

In this age of increased threats to national security, every state needs to have measures in place to protect important infrastructure. In Alaska, home of the trans-Alaska oil pipeline and 20 percent of the nation's domestic crude oil production, it is especially important to ensure the safety of these unique assets.

"Every piece of critical infrastructure in the country is a viable target for terrorism," explained Bob Kean, chief of security for Doyon Universal Services. DUS has been providing contract security services since 1993, when they first began working on the North Slope for Arco, providing security on the Kuparuk project. Today, they hold the security contract on that project with ConocoPhillips Alaska Inc., as well as a contract to provide security at the company's Anchorage office complex.

"We provide security for all of the Alyeska Pipeline, as well as for the Port of Anchorage," added Kean. The company also has contracts with BP Exploration (Alaska) Inc. to provide security services to the Endicott and Milne Point projects on Alaska's North Slope.

TRAINED WORK FORCE

To provide security in so many areas requires a highly trained work force, ready to deal with issues ranging from driver safety to oil-spill containment to counter-terrorism measures. "We have a very experienced staff on the North Slope, with our security officers averaging 17 years of law enforcement or military security experience," said Kean. "They are trained in a number of areas, including advanced firearms training, advanced safety training and advanced medical training."

The staff also has extensive counter-terrorism training, which includes learning what pre-terrorism indicators are in order to prevent an event, like the destruction of the Twin Towers, from happening. "Since 9-11, our training has taken a different focus, including having more contingency plans in place," said Kean. "While I will not release information on our counter-terrorism measures, I can say that we do have established protocols in place to increase staff, protocols for weapons and equipment, and protocols for conducting searches for each threat level."

As threats increase and decrease, North Slope security companies like Doyon Universal keep employees up-to-date through intelligence briefings each morning, as well as through bulletins released to the field every two weeks. "One of the most critical things that our leadership staff does is act as members of the Joint Terrorism Task...