Material management: experience on the Alaska North Slope Project. [Kuparuk River Project]

The Kuparuk River Unit Project started in 1978, with the first major production facility sea lifted to the construction site on the North Slope of Alaska in the summer of 1981. The oil production field is located approximately 25 miles west of the Prudhoe Bay facility and 250 miles north of the Arctic Circle. The size of the Kuparuk site is 215 square miles, overlaying a projected recoverable reservoir of 1.2 billion barrels of oil. The present plan calls for approximately 50 drillsite pads, with the possibility of up to 32 wells on each pad. Modular construction was the most cost-effective method to use. The need for intensive material management on the Kuparuk River Unit Project became evident as the scope of engineering effort increased, shortening the amount of time available for acquisition of purchased materials and for the construction of the modules to meet the annual six-week sea-lift delivery period. The logistics of the Kuparuk construction site, the timeframe required to do the modular construction, the support facilities necessary, and several contractors and types of contracts, required Stearns Catalytic Corporation to consider a sophisticated material control system to identify the various areas of concern. The computerized system set upmore » to solve the problems is discussed here generically.« less