ABSTRACT
Oil spills only occur after the start-up of a facility but oil spill prevention for a pipeline-terminal-tanker complex begins with route selection and continues through design, construction, personnel training, operation and maintenance. The trans-Alaska pipeline project has faced all of the usual, and some unusual, problems which needed solutions to give maximum assurance that oil spills would not occur during the operating life of the facilities.
This conference today is considering the prevention of oil spill incidents associated with tanker and pipeline operations, refineries, and transfer and storage terminals. The trans-Alaska pipeline system is concerned with each of these functions of the petroleum industry.
Alyeska Pipeline Service Company is responsible for design, construction, operation, and maintenance of the pipeline system which will move crude oil produced on the Alaskan North Slope along a route to Valdez, an ice free port located on an arm of Prince William Sound. At Valdez, the oil will be transferred to ocean going tankers.
The project will have at its ultimate design capacity of two million barrels per day:
Almost 800 miles of 48-inch pipeline.
Twelve pump stations with 650,000 installed HP.
Twenty-million barrels of crude oil storage in fifty-two tanks.
Five loading berths at a deep water terminal servicing a fleet of tankers ranging in size from 30,000 dwt to 250,000 dwt.
Eight crude oil topping plants, manufacturing fuel for pump stations, each with a charge of 10,000 barrels per day.
A ballast water treating plant capable of handling up to 800,000 barrels per day of dirty ballast.
A 25,000 KW power generation plant.
Several dozen mechanical refrigeration plants which will be freezing the ground in Alaska.