The new Arctic Oilfield Hotel: way better than the old AOH.

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

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For a company that a year ago decided not to divest itself of its Alaska holdings, nothing quite says "Were committed to Alaska" than investing in the construction of new housing facilities for its employees and to better serve their clients.

The old Arctic Oilfield Hotel (AOH), home for 350 of CH2M's more than 2,200 employees in Alaska, was built in the '80s with 70s era modules (stacked trailers). The new AOH, three stories tall with room for 450 employees initially (and potentially 600), is being built on the same seven acre pad as the old AOH. It's centrally located at the corner of Spine and Sag River roads in Deadhorse, close to both guard shacks. And it's coming along nicely.

More Room Needed, Better Rooms Wanted

Initial project planning began four years ago with the need for more room and growth capacity.

"The biggest impetus is that we have a serious shortage of housing for our workforce in Deadhorse," says CH2M Vice President of Equipment and Infrastructure Kelly Droop.

The company services a majority of its clients out of Deadhorse--CH2M employees work for a number of clients on any given day with a variety of industry including fabrication; construction; specialty services' operations and maintenance; fluids hauling; rig movements and support; equipment services including crane, light and heavy duty equipment rental, and maintenance; full service vehicle maintenance; facility operators; industrial wash and steam bay; and facility maintenance.

"We were spending millions of dollars housing overflow employees or when we were getting ready for a big drilling season push, we were spending a great deal of funds housing people elsewhere," Droop says.

Even though there has been an increase in housing in Deadhorse over the last few years, Droop says CH2M wanted something suited for their employees and future capacity for the long run.

"A lot of it wasn't of the [standard of] quality for long-term housing for our employees," she says. "Our employees live up there year-round 365 days a year. They're on a rotation but they work year-round, it's their home. For a lot of them they are there more than at their 'home-home' away from work and they deserve some privacy, and some respect, and some amenities that a lot of that temporary housing in Deadhorse doesn't provide." CH2M strived towards providing a camp up to today's standards of living with amenities taken for granted while still ensuring a cost-efficient solution, especially considering today's oil prices. Working closely with all contractors from designers to builder and installers was the key to deliver a high-quality project for the next thirty years with all necessities while still remaining within budget. While many areas of the camp are smaller than originally planned, they have managed to pack a variety of the highly desired features into the building.

The New AOH

A lot of work, thought, and feedback went into the design of the new AOH. Winchester Alaska, Inc., headed by Jerry Winchester, began designing...