Big Lake shop fabricates truckable modules bound for North Slope

BIG LAKE — The latest of more than 300 truckable modules built at the NANA Construction Services plant in the Mat-Su Borough since 2009, this specially designed unit has a price tag of $13.5 million and will enable BP to process more oil and gas from Prudhoe Bay.

BP Engineer Kara Dunphy said the unit was designed to improve the gas handling capability of the existing low-pressure separator module at Gathering Center 2 at the west end of the field. The new module will allow for more gas — and in turn, more oil — to be processed, she said.

Dunphy said the new unit, designed by NANA WorleyParsons and fabricated at the NANA shop in Big Lake, is a pressure safety valve relief system that will be trucked to Prudhoe Bay in the next few weeks and installed during summer turnarounds.

She said the switch is expected to produce an additional 2,000 barrels of oil per day from the aging field.

Fred Elvsaas is project manager for the NANA Construction’s Big Lake Fabrication Facility. He said construction on the module began last fall and presently 85 people are employed at the plant. Crews are working 12-hour days, six days a week now, but at the project’s peak the plant was also running a second shift.

Elvsaas said these are good jobs that pay from $70,000 to $80,000 a year.

“Right now the shop is totally loaded with BP work,” he said. “There is a lot of activity going on in Prudhoe Bay.”

The gas processing module crews are finishing now is a 20 x 30 feet structure, that is 17 feet tall and weighs 46,000 tons.

“Whatever the client wants we can produce it right here,” Elvsaas said.

When it’s time to load the module, he said jacks are used to raise the building so the flat bed can be backed under it in preparation for its journey up the haul road. NANA says shipping modules from its Big Lake location saves about two days driving time for these over-sized loads.

But the modules fabricated here aren’t all limited steel construction.

In a separate building at the NANA Construction’s 20-acre Big Lake Fabrication Facility, 2053 S Mlakar Cir., workers are building a wood-framed building in sections that will barged to Dutch Harbor.

“You’ll see it on Deadliest Catch probably,” Elvsaas said.

The structure will be loaded on to a barge in May and shipped to Dutch Harbor where it will become “The Norwegian Rat Saloon.”

Elvsaas said he thinks the trusses for the building might have come from Spenard Builders Supply. He said he works a lot with SBS and Arctic Insulation and Manufacturing in Big Lake.

He said NANA is a big supporter of using local hire and local subcontractors as a way to help boost the Mat-Su economy. Elvsaas said he’s also working with local schools to create a path from the classroom to their fabrication shop. He said students from Colony High and Houston High are coming over for a tour later this spring to get the ball rolling.

“Hopefully we will be able to hire those kids and they won’t have to leave town,” Elvsaas said.

Already, he said school programs are picking up the fab shop’s scrap metal and left over wire.

BP Alaska spokesperson Dawn Patience said the oil giant has a lot of work planned on the North Slope during this summer turnaround season. She said most of this work centers on existing operations and maintenance.

Patience said the workforce will grow by about 700 people during the eight to 10 week turnaround,

“We have to keep what we have going,” Patience said.

She said the module preparing to ship this month represents about two years of preparation.

“These projects have been planned for a while,” Patience said.

She said BP also is assessing about $3 billion in new development at the west end of Prudhoe Bay.

If BP moves forward with the project, she said it would include drilling about 130 new wells aimed at extracting more than 200 million barrels of light and viscous oil from the Schrader Bluff, Kuparuk and Sag reservoirs.

Contact Heather A. Resz at 352-2268 or heather.resz@frontiersman.com.