Good people are on the problem

When you retire most people are glad to leave behind problems that can turn your life upside down.

That is how I feel about the still-developing story about the natural gas leak experienced by ConocoPhillips at its Alpine field. I can sympathize with the ConocoPhillips people who are under the gun in this case.

I have no insider information on the leak but I do have enough experience to be confident that the company did — and continues to do — everything reasonable people could be expected to do under the circumstances.

Mistakes were almost certainly made but you can be sure that the company did all it could to fix the problem and restore the field to normal operations. I am also confident that they are being honest about their roles in the gas leaks and the ongoing efforts to resolve them. Anything else risks disastrous damage to company reputations.

I was Alaska manager of public relations for ARCO from 1967 to 1969 and later did contract work for its successor companies, including ConocoPhillips. That experience convinced me that the companies working on Alaska’s North Slope have good intentions and value the trust placed in them by the people of Alaska.

The companies are well-aware that such trust is essential and necessarily serves as the basis for important decisions made by state and local officials on company operations.

What many people — those most critical of oil and gas industry operations here — fail to understand is that the companies value their relations with Alaskans and try to make decisions beneficial to the people of this state as well as to themselves. Failure to do so creates enemies and encourages those who would like to penalize the companies, thereby removing billions of dollars from their bottom lines.

I developed confidence in the good intentions of the oil and gas industry after my wife and I first came here. I was then on the oil beat of The Anchorage Times and covered industry operations starting shortly after the discovery at Prudhoe Bay.

Company intentions were good, as I soon learned, because failure to be a good corporate citizen could cost billions of dollars. And that is even truer today than it was then.

Richfield Oil, which later became ARCO, was then headquartered in Dallas, Texas, and its top exploration executives were focused on developing the full potential of its leases here.

The discovery well at Prudhoe Bay was being drilled when my wife and I first arrived here for jobs at The Anchorage Times. I came to Alaska to work as a reporter for The Times, which Bob Atwood then owned. Bob had come here years earlier after a stint at my old newspaper in Massachusetts, The Worcester Telegram.

My wife had experience on the women’s page of the newspaper we left in Massachusetts. When Bob Atwood learned of her prior experience he offered her the job of women’s editor of The Anchorage Times.

Her salary was a lot higher than mine since her experience was harder to find in this part or the world than mine was. She went on to other jobs and acquired benefits (like good health insurance) that is still better than anything I could muster.