Remote - October 2011 - (Page 14)

Applications - Feature Shacking Up in the Arctic NANA Packages Generators, Transcube Fuel Tanks to Power Shelters on Alaskan Ice Road that the location is extremely remote. When spring arrives and the ice road Imagine having a 20-by-10-foot space as your place of work. Not a cubicle or an office, in which case those proportions would actually be quite melts, the only way to reach the site is by helicopter, small aircraft or on comfortable, but an entire structure. Tollbooth workers everywhere may roll boats or barges. Until early 2010, the Point Thomson project had consisted of permittheir eyes at the proposition until they learn that this hypothetical building happens to be stationed well above the Arctic Circle in a location prone to ting, planning and getting organized. It was only in recent months that things really got underway, when phase three weather conditions, ExxonMobil directionally drilled including blowing snow that often leaves workers stranded inside. under the Beaufort Sea to a natural gas development well known as As it happens, this small structure is not merely hypothetical. PTU-15, located more than a mile off the Alaskan coast. Drilling will It’s a real shelter along an ice road sitting on the ocean off the North continue into other development wells and eventually full-scale proSlope of Alaska. This particular duction will commence in 2014. ice road runs 60 miles from the operation center at Endicott to Point To date, front-end work on the project has already entailed Thomson, where ExxonMobil Production Company is preparing the expertise of more than 1,500 people from dozens of compato tap into a huge reservoir holdnies, a number that will continue ing approximately 8 trillion cubic to grow over the next few years. feet of natural gas, an amount that As is often the case when such accounts for 25 percent of the gas a large operation is taking place resources on the North Slope. in a remote area with no existing The Point Thomson project ExxonMobile’s Point Thomson natural gas pipeline facilities are about as remote as you can get. infrastructure, camps were set up wouldn’t be a feasible venture to accommodate the workers. without a new Alaska gas pipeline, running through Canada to the Midwest U.S., which is currently in NANA Management Services, LLC (NMS), an Alaskan native support services provider, was awarded the contract for the Point Thomson campdevelopment. In fact, the situation is a two-way street in that the pipeline site. In business for more than 35 years, NMS serves a variety of customers can’t succeed without gas from Point Thomson. Complicating the matter is in industries from schools and government to retail superstores and health care. But the company’s longest standing group of clients is involved in oilfield production, putting the Point Thomson project right up its alley. “We have long-standing relationships with BP, other petroleum companies and North Slope-based service companies,” said Joe Liska, director of enterprise development for NMS’s Camps Services division. “We employ hundreds of people to provide logistics service, maintenance and security at our camps.” As one would expect, part of Liska’s job is to react to challenges that become apparent at a given campsite by seeking out solutions to those issues. But what makes his role more interesting is that he also is constantly on the lookout to improve company services without necessarily having a specific problem to solve. This approach typically involves proactively learning about new products and services before NMS ever has a need for them, and then recognizing how they could be applied in a beneficial way. Those two aspects of the job recently came together on the Arctic ice road leading to the Point Thomson Project. “It’s very common to build ice roads to reach remote areas for exploration or other winter activity,” said Liska. “Obviously this was a project that required an ice road, and our security group identified that there could be a need to build new guard shacks for ExxonMobil along the road leading to the campsite. So I started working with one of the security managers on a shack design.” The 20-by-10-foot shelters were designed to sit on I-beams so the units could be pulled onto trailers or raised by forklift. Plans also included a small bathroom, refrigerator, microwave and even a foldout bed in the event that bad winter weather would strand workers in the shacks beyond their scheduled shifts. Adequate generators were also needed. As Liska considered what items would be required to equip the shacks and supply fuel to the generators, he realized that part of the solution would likely come from a piece of equipment he had only recently learned about a Transcube transportable diesel fuel tank. “I found out about Transcube from a local dealer, Craig Taylor Equipment Company, and from an independent sales rep with MMCO LLC,” said Liska. “What first caught my attention was the secondary containment 14 www.RemoteMagazine.com http://www.magneticsmagazine.com http://www.magneticsmagazine.com http://www.RemoteMagazine.com

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Remote - October 2011

Remote - October/November 2011
KEMA Named a Seaport-Enhanced Prime Contractor for the US Navy
Opto 22 Releases iOS App for Automation and Control System
Powering Advanced AMR/AMI Networks
Smart, Connected Remote Sites
Minnesota D.O.T. Makes a Right Turn - To a Flexible Monitoring Solution
Reducing Industrial Energy Consumption: Monitoring is the Key
Shacking up in the Artic
AFCON Software and Electronics Released Pulse V1.50 with New Event Manager Add-On
Digi Launches New 3G iDigi Development Kit
Hikvision Launches 650 TVL CCD Day/Night Camera
VYCON Introduces Hybrid VDC XEB Energy Storage System
Crenlo Adds NEMA Wall-Mount Enclosures to Product Lineup
Industry News
Calendar of Events

Remote - October 2011