Nikiski Facility Besides its Anchorage facility, AES owns a fabrication and assembly facility in Nikiski that’s capable of 250 tons of structural steel fabrication and 125 tons of pipe fabrication every month. It has room for up to four hundred craft and staff personnel, according to the company, and it uses mobile cranes, barge cranes, and module transporters to handle materials. Sitting on twenty-five acres of land thirteen miles outside the city of Kenai, the 41,400-square-foot Nikiski fabrication facility encompasses a 26,000-square-foot fabrication shop and heated warehouse, office space, staff quarters, and a storage area. Like the Anchorage facility, the AES fabrication operation in Nikiski handles a range of work—including semi-automated pipe and structural steel fabrication—besides truckable modules for Alaska’s oilfields. One notable project—a truckable chemical injection module for a BP development on the North Slope. The Kenai Peninsula is also home to another major player in Alaska’s fabrication field: CH2M Hill, a do-it-all com-
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pany with international reach. Since it was founded more than fortyfive years ago, CH2M Hill has provided numerous services to clients working to develop the state’s oilfields, including building hundreds of production modules. With offices in Anchorage, Fairbanks, and Kenai, the company’s experience in Alaska’s oil and gas industry runs deep. It’s worked on the Trans Alaska Pipeline System, providing everything from engineering expertise and installation services to repair and maintenance work. It employs more people than most other private employers in the state, with approximately 2,900 Alaskan employees, according to the company. Over the years, the company’s investments in facilities, infrastructure, and equipment have totaled more than $300 million. It maintains a massive North Slope equipment fleet, with more than two thousand items including cranes, forklifts, generators, vacuum trucks, light plants, and various other heavy construction equipment. Between Anchorage, Kenai, and Deadhorse, CH2M Hill’s work takes place across more
than 80,000 square feet of shop space and 125 acres of pad space. CH2M Hill calls itself a project delivery company, capable of providing any service an advancing energy, mining, transportation, environmental or facility project might need, from conception to operation. Oilfield modules rank high on that list. The company is capable of producing more than 10,000 tons of truckable modules annually; up to 120 tons each. When it comes to sealift modules, the number quadruples: CH2M Hill can build approximately 40,000 tons of sealift modules annually, according to the company. One of its largest weighed in at more than 3,700 tons. All told, CH2M Hill has fabricated more than 1,000 modules, including metering units and manifolds, launchers, generators, test separators, and electrical and instrumentation modules.
More than Modules While much of Alaska’s oilfield module fabrication work takes place in shops throughout Southcentral, Fairbanks has its own industry.
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