The History of Artificial Islands for Oil Exploration and Development in the Alaskan Artic

Abstract

Eighteen artificial (man-made) islands have been constructed in the Alaskan Beaufort Sea to support oil exploration and production. The first islands, constructed in the late 1970s, were in shallow nearshore waters where wave and ice conditions are relatively benign. By the early 1980s, island construction had ventured to more exposed sites with water depths approaching 15 m. Innovative slope protection systems and construction methods were developed to address the remote Arctic locations, short construction seasons, scarce local resources, and the challenging, yet poorly defined, offshore wave and ice climate. This paper provides an overview of the history of island development in the Alaskan Arctic and discusses design evolution, construction, and performance.

Problems Concerning Gravel Islands Constructing and Exploitation in the Arctic Conditions

“…At the island corners, the width of the gravel berm was increased to 30 meters to serve as a gravel source when storm waves caused berm erosion. A total of 16,500 concrete blocks were constructed to cover the island slopes [7].…”

“…Provided that the bench is sufficiently wide, a destructive interference will be created between runup from an arriving wave and backwash from the preceding wave. A portion of the kinetic energy contained in the advancing runup will thus be dissipated by turbulence on the bench [7]. − Ice Ride-Up Performance.…”

“…The inclusion of a bench effectively compartmentalizes the slope into upper and lower segments, thereby inhibiting damage propagation and promoting a more desirable mode of failure. If damage occurs to the armor at the outer edge of the bench, the entire width of the bench must be eroded before the work surface is directly threatened [7].…”

“…Further some scientific publications were analyzed [7][8][9][10][11][12][13]; from those sources it was obtained information regarding existed methods of protection slopes. Also they describe the previously constructed gravel island and the problems associated with their construction.…”