Alyeska Pipeline Celebrates 40 Years Of Pumping Oil From Prudhoe To Valdez
Alaska has a history of "big" projects. The Kennicott Mines, for example. Kennicott is now a beloved tourist attraction, but at one time the mines operated the most sophisticated community in Alaska, with a laundry, fresh food, electric lighting and a hospital well before many other rural Alaska communities ever approached that level of service.
Another big project was the WAMCATS telegraph line. This U.S. Army Signal Corps' 1903-era telegraph line linked Eagle to Seattle by cable, through Valdez. It included 2,000 miles of undersea cable. The old roadhouses of the Richardson Highway often had a WAMCATS station within a snowball throw's distance away, and you can still see the old telegraph station at Big Delta Historical Park, at Rika's Roadhouse.
The 800-mile long Alyeska Pipeline, which was completed and shipped its first oil in the spring of 1977, 40 years ago, is one of a series of large and ambitious projects. The Alyeska pipe is 48 inches in diameter, about the same size as the 90-mile long "Davidson Ditch" pipe that transferred water for gold sluicing north of Fairbanks.
"The Pipeline" runs along the Richardson Highway all the way to Fairbanks, before heading north. It can be viewed at a number of roadside locations along the route. There are displays on the Pipeline, most notably in Valdez, Delta Junction and just north of Fairbanks.
Here's another figure. Alyeska reports that in 2016, there was the first-ever calendar year-to-year increase in oil pumping since 2002. In 2015, the Pipeline averaged 508,446 barrels per day. The 2016 amount was a 1.8% increase, to 517,500 barrels a day. Its peak flow was 2 million barrels a day, in 1988, says Alyeska.
