Normally I try very hard to leave my "Real Job" out of my blog - if I could I'd leave it out of the rest of my life, too! Today, however, I had to help play tour guide for a bunch of out-of-state oil spill response people at the Valdez Marine Terminal, the oil terminal where the Trans-Alaska Pipeline ends and tankers are loaded to haul crude oil to refineries. It occurred to me that this was an opportunity most people to get to have, so I thought I'd share a few photos. (Darn few. This didn't occur to me until near the end of the tour.)
As you probably know, the pipeline runs 800 miles from the oil fields on the North Slope of Alaska. It is owned by a consortium of oil companies who also collectively own Alyeska Pipeline Service Company, a non-profit responsible for running and maintaining the pipeline and the VMT. They are also responsible for all oil spill response along the line, at the terminal and for tankers transiting Prince William Sound.
That last bit is where my Real Job comes in. I work for the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation in the Marine Vessels Section. We're responsible for reviewing and approving oil spill contingency plans state-wide, and then for ensuring the plan holders can do what their plans say they will by conducting drills and inspections. I work mostly with the plans for crude oil tankers in Prince William Sound and Cook Inlet. What this really means is that I attend a lot of meetings.
That was a long lead-in to a few photos, but I wanted to provide a little background info for those lucky enough to be ignorant of it.
When the oil arrives in Valdez (the terminal is actually located across the bay from town), it can either be diverted to directly load onto a tanker or it goes into these giant storage tanks. Each one is about 250 feet in diameter and very, very tall. I'm drawing a blank on how much each holds, but it's a whole lot of oil. This photo shows the East Tank Farm. The West Tank Farm has an additional four tanks, although only one is currently being used.
Eventually all of this oil gets loaded onto tankers owned or chartered by four companies. The loading is done at two berths which can pump up to 110,000 gallons per minute. The tankers in this photo are SeaRiver's American Progress on the right (SeaRiver is Exxon's shipping company) and Alaska Tanker Company's Alaskan Navigator on the left (ATC is BP's shipping company). The Alaska Navigator holds 1.3 million barrels of oil (a barrel is 42 gallons). It's a good thing the Somali pirates aren't active here!
This final photo really should have been the first one, but you'll see why I put it last. It was taken inside the East Metering building where the oil is metered (the volume is measured) as it comes off the pipeline and before it goes to the tankers or tanks. Apparently there is a correspoding sign at Pump Station 1 on the North Slope that says, "The Beginning."
