The Alyeska consortium refers to the major oil companies that own and operate the

Trans-Alaska Pipeline System The Trans-Alaska Pipeline System (TAPS) is an oil transportation system spanning Alaska, including the trans-Alaska crude-oil pipeline, 12 pump stations, several hundred miles of feeder pipelines, and the Valdez Marine Terminal. TAPS is one o ...

(TAPS) through the Alyeska Pipeline Service Company.

History

The Alaska corporation commonly known as Alyeska Pipeline Company was founded in 1970 to design, construct, operate and maintain a pipeline to transport oil from the fields on the North Slope of

Alaska Alaska ( ) is a non-contiguous U.S. state on the northwest extremity of North America. Part of the Western United States region, it is one of the two non-contiguous U.S. states, alongside Hawaii. Alaska is also considered to be the north ...

where oil was discovered in 1968 to an ice-free deep-water port in Valdez, Alaska. The pipeline was built between March 1975 and June 1977, running from the North Slope fields at Prudhoe Bay to the Marine Terminal at Valdez on Prince William Sound. Alyeska then went on to operate and maintain TAPS. The first oil flowed into the pipeline on June 20, 1977, and the first tanker load departed from Valdez on August 1, 1977. ''Totem Marine Tug & Barge, Inc. v. Alyeska Pipeline Service Co.'' was argued before the Alaska Supreme Court in 1978. The Alyeska Pipeline Service Company was partially responsible for helping to respond to the ''Exxon Valdez'' oil spill. However, Alyeska Pipeline was unprepared for the events, and consequently slow to respond with cleanup crews and equipment.Ferrell, O. C., Fraedrich, J., & Ferrell. (2014). Business Ethics: Ethical Decision Making & Cases (10 edition). Stamford, CT, USA: South-Western College Pub. (p. 425-426) Additionally, shortly before the ''Exxon Valdez'' spill, Alyeska had persuaded the Coast Guard that some safety equipment was not necessary on tankers---equipment that may have reduced the scale of the ''Exxon Valdez'' disaster. September 2017 Alyeska had another spill due to a mix up of piping by long time employees, and dispensed anywhere from 9.5 to 38 barrels of product into the narrows of Valdez. The thirty-year TAPS State and Federal land leases were due to expire in 2004. The State Lease was renewed for another thirty years on November 26, 2002, and a matching Federal Record of Decision for Right-of-Way was signed on January 8, 2003. In 2019, it was announced that BP would be selling its shares in Alyeska to Houston-based Hilcorp.

Organization

The major owner of the company is Hilcorp with 46.93% of the shares dating from the acquisition of BP. The other group members are ConocoPhillips Transportation (shares formerly owned by ARCO and acquired by Phillips during its acquisition of ARCO Alaska as part of the settlement between BP and the FTC) (28.29%),

ExxonMobil Exxon Mobil Corporation ( ) is an American multinational List of oil exploration and production companies, oil and gas corporation headquartered in Spring, Texas, a suburb of Houston. Founded as the Successors of Standard Oil, largest direct s ...

(20.34%), Koch Alaska Pipeline Company (3.08%), and Unocal (1.36%). The government responsibility in regulating TAPS is managed through the Joint Pipeline Office

JPO), a consortium of thirteen federal and state agencies under the

Department of the Interior The United States Department of the Interior (DOI) is an executive department of the U.S. federal government responsible for the management and conservation of most federal lands and natural resources. It also administers programs relatin ...

. The corporation is named after an

Aleut Aleuts ( ; (west) or (east) ) are the Indigenous people of the Aleutian Islands, which are located between the North Pacific Ocean and the Bering Sea. Both the Aleuts and the islands are politically divided between the US state of Alaska ...

word meaning "mainland". It is headquartered in

Anchorage Anchorage, officially the Municipality of Anchorage, is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Alaska. With a population of 291,247 at the 2020 census, it contains nearly 40 percent of the state's population. The Anchorage metropolita ...

and has around 900 employees.

References

External links

Alyeska Pipeline Service Company website
{{Authority control Trans-Alaska Pipeline System Oil companies of the United States Oil pipeline companies Companies based in Anchorage, Alaska Energy companies established in 1970 Non-renewable resource companies established in 1970 1970 establishments in Alaska ARCO Former BP subsidiaries