THE LINK: JULY 2023 30 Providing innovative multidisciplinary services since 1979. 907.561.1011 | PNDENGINEERS.COM red dog road | northwest arctic borough, ak — JUNEAU, ALASKA — AVAILABLE STATEWIDE operations@coastalhelicopters.com 907-789-5600 www.coastalhelicopters.com ✓ CONSTRUCTION ✓ EXPLORATION ✓ CONTRACT ✓ SUPPORT ✓ CHARTER It took years and a combination of pressure from the oil companies, Marshall, and others, but Egan finally relented and selected Prudhoe Bay for the state in 1964. But there were also a lot of skeptics. When the Prudhoe Bay selection was posted, Marshall remembers someone scrawled a note across the map in 5-inch-tall letters: “They wrote ‘Marshall’s Folly’ on there,” Marshall said. Harry Jamison worked for one of the oil companies taking a risk on the North Slope. Like Marshall, Jamison hoped there might be a billion-barrel oil field hiding there. It would take that much to justify the astronomical cost of transporting the oil from the Arctic to market. Jamison knew it would be a challenge. “Billion-barrel oil fields don’t come along every day. There have been very, very few ever discovered in the United States,” Jamison said. And soon, dreams of a billion-barrel oil field in Alaska’s Arctic started seeming like a long shot. Starting in 1963, BP and Sinclair Oil Corp. teamed up and drilled six wells on federal land near the Brooks Range. All six were dry. After that, a series of other companies came up short, too. Eventually that included Jamison’s company, ARCO. The oil companies that had taken a risk on Alaska’s North Slope started hemorrhaging money. “It was extremely discouraging,” Jamison said. “The whole industry was really down on the North Slope by that time.” After well after well came up dry, Marshall’s Prudhoe Bay selection started to seem like a mistake. By 1967, Jamison said most oil companies had given up. But then, ARCO and Humble Oil teamed up and moved the only drill rig left on the North Slope to Prudhoe Bay. It was the oil industry’s last shot. On a flight to check out the Prudhoe Bay well just before Christmas 1967, Jamison remembers looking out the window of the plane. “You don’t see anything. I mean, it’s absolutely black,” Jamison said. “And it’s not just remote and dark and cold, but it’s downright dangerous.” Far in the distance, Jamison spied a single light. It was the lonely rig: Prudhoe Bay State Well No. 1. Gil Mull, a young geologist working at the well at the time, said for weeks, drilling the well wasn’t all that exciting. “Almost like watching grass grow,” he said. Then one day, they tested the well’s pressure. When the crew opened the valve, Mull said there was a powerful burst of gas. “It sounded like a jet plane overhead. It’s shaking the rig. It’s a rumble. It’s a roar,” he said. The crews ignited the gas rushing from the pipe. It sparked a 50foot flare that burned in the darkness of the North Slope sky for more than eight hours. A few months later, the companies drilled a second well to confirm the size of the oil field and discovered it was huge. Initial estimates were that Prudhoe Bay held 9.6 billion barrels of oil — at the time, it was the biggest oil discovery in North America. It’s still the biggest CONTINUED from PAGE 28
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