Chapter 9 - Offshore California and Alaska

Abstract

This chapter discusses the expansion of offshore oil industry in California and Alaska. In the 1960s, Brown & Root Marine ventured into new geographical and technological frontiers, from Venezuela to the Persian Gulf, and from Project Mohole to deep sea diving. During the same period, promising oil discoveries in California and Alaska brought Brown & Root into other environments that presented particularly difficult engineering and construction challenges—creating offshore systems capable of withstanding both earthquakes and ice forces. Activity offshore California had to wait for the resolution of the tidelands issue in 1953. Then, after a series of bids on state-owned leases, federal lands offshore California were also opened to oil exploration. Offshore companies found distinct differences in California and the Gulf of Mexico. The most obvious was the steepness of the ocean floor. Moreover, earthquakes were the key design consideration offshore California. Brown & Root took important roles in both Cook Inlet and the North Slope. In both the Cook Inlet and the North Slope, Brown & Root's engineering expertise overcame the challenge of a cold environment—ice forces and tides in the inlet; permafrost and low productivity on the Slope. Prudhoe Bay shifted the focus of oil development to the North Slope. With an estimated recoverable reserve of almost ten billion barrels of oil, Prudhoe Bay was the largest field ever discovered in the United States, but its location in the Arctic Circle meant that it was far away from established infrastructure and plagued by the most extreme weather as yet encountered by the petroleum industry. In this era, Alaska's North Slope became the most significant petroleum development in the United States, and Brown & Root took a front row seat for this big show.