OCR Text |
Show x. Page OIL 8 & & mining Approximate This information derived from sources lieved to be correct. BANK & FINANCIAL March 8, 1969 MINING JOURNAL Oil Stock Quotations regarded as accurate, not guaranteed, but be- Compiled as of Friday, March 7, 1969 LOW PRICED MINING, OIL & URANIUM STOCKS RUSH TO THE NORTH SLOPE INSURANCE COMPANY STOCKS INDUSTRIAL, OIL & MINING STOCKS Following are excerpts from a fascinating article in Petroleum Today magazine on the rush to develop the rich oil field of Alaska. Some Rocky Mountain firms have joined the race. . . Oilmen are used to hunting for petroleum in harsh, forbidding outposts of the world and laying out huge amounts of money for the privilege. But many of them still shake their heads despairingly when they think about the North Slope. First, there is the red-in- k problem of cost. Petroleum companies have had to spend to six times as much on Alaskan operations as on similar work in California and Texas coastal areas. And of the 197 wildcat wells drilled since 1957 in Alaska, 149 were diy holes. Next, there is the incredibly bad weather. Temperatures in January can drop as low as -- 75. Fierce storms whip in off the ocean. Even on the relatively quiet days, the cold is so bitter our men can only work about 30 minutes out in the open, one Alaskan oil hunter reports. Drilling can be difficult. Special cement must be used that will not freeze before it sets. Special cooling techniques must be used to make sure the permafrost ' being drilled doesnt thaw out and cave in. Winter doesnt leave the North Slope until late in May. The pale Arctic sun melts away the snow, and the frozen tundra turns abruptly into a muskeg swamp. The sedge grasses turn green, and briefly the muskeg is ablaze with flowers. The crew s dont have much chance to appreciate the floral display, though. Theyre too busy swatting at the swarms of mosquitoes that rise up out of the wet muskeg. (Theyre big babies, and they dont have any buzz. They just sneak up and bite hard, wryly reports one derrick man.) Transportation is unquestionably the third big problem facing the oil hunters on the tundra. How can they get the oil out? The Arctic Ocean and Bering Sea are frozen over most of the year. There is no chance of getting conventional oil tankers Yip that far for any length of time. At the moment, the oil companies on the North Slope are thinking about pipelines. One possibility would be to sink the pipeline in the permafrost and run it down to Fairbanks through ' one of the low passes that cut across the Brooks Range. The oil could then be sent on to a deep-watport in the Gulf of Alaska, where it would be taken aboard tankers and transported down the coast. A more breath-takin- g scheme would be to run the pipeline up along the Mackenzie River and across Western Canada to Edmonton. There it would hook into the Interprovincial Pipeline, which has its terminus in Chicago. The pipeline would be 3,300 miles long: the longest 011c in the Free World (Russias Friendship Pipeline runs 3,400 miles from the Ural fields to Czechoslovakia). The pipeline engineers know the crude from the North Slope will flow at Arctic temperatures, but it may have to be treated or heated, both expensive propositions, to make it flow at a steady rate. The muskeg also presents problems. When it is dug into for roads and pipeline ditches, puddles form which in time could turn into rushing streams that would tear out miles of pipeline. Despite all these problems, oilmen expect to have the big oil fields of the North Slope in The confidence is best production by 1971-7who lias done more than Owen, expressed by Jimmie his share of wildcutting. Oilmen thrive on these kinds of problems, he says. I remember the old days in Texas towns like Bui'kburnctt, Electra, and Ranger. When I was up in Alaska, I saw and relived these days all over again. A great new section is opening up, and there is nothing more pleasing to the eye of an oilman. f er 2. |