One of the most remote and northern communities in the U.S. is Deadhorse, built specifically to services the thousands of transient and well-paid Prudhoe Bay oilfield workers. Work is 2 weeks on, 2 weeks off; 5000 workers total. The whole place didn’t even exist before 1970, got a census in 1980, and had 5 permanent residents in 2000. The buildings rest on pylons to not melt the permafrost. The land is leased by the U.S. government to 2 companies: Hilcorp contractors, and ConocoPhillips. Haliburton is hired by both to log volume data, and to discover & remove debris from the wells. BP used to lease the entire field but was forced to sell some of it to break up their monopoly. They took the opportunity to completely divest because the lease makes the leaseholder responsible for returning the land to its natural state when no longer viable, which will be immensely expensive. All of the visible oil rigs are retired. Recovery was initially 40%, with a capacity of 2 million barrels per day, but currently, only 320K. To keep the oilfields productive, they intend to increase recovery up to 60% capacity via fracking.
Deadhorse
We took a tour guided by a personable young man chasing his muse and ended up in this god-forsaken place. The tour ended at the Arctic Ocean, though we had to go through a passport checkpoint & security to get to the bay where we were all supposed to get into the frigid water. After seeing me strip down to my undies, the guide decided to follow suit; it was the first time he’d gotten in himself. Gwynne, more adventurous than me, dipped completely into the water. It was my 65th birthday; can't get any better than that.
Arctic Plunge
Prudhoe Bay - June 14, 2023
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Martin Hash
- Posts: 18250
- Joined: Wed Jan 20, 2010 2:02 pm
Prudhoe Bay - June 14, 2023
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