Abstract:
With increasing worldwide demand for oil and gas, frontier area reserves located in Arctic regions of Russia, Canada and Alaska have become increasingly attractive. Estimates suggest that these areas contain approximately 25% of undiscovered global hydrocarbons. Considering the distances to market and associated costs of pipelines, marine transportation presents a sensible option.
This presentation discusses the oil development in the Arctic. The types of ice conditions are discussed and some of the innovative new ships that are being developed to move the oil through those conditions.
Author: James W. St. John
Jim is a Vice-President of Science and Technology Corporation and manager of their Polar Technology Office. He is a graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1973 holding Bachelor's and Master's Degrees in Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering. Since January 1980, when he joined Arctec, Inc., he has worked almost exclusively with icebreaking ships. He was the one of the lead engineers in one of the first ice loads measurement programs on the USCGC Polar Sea (WAGB-11) during the early 1980's covering seven deployments of Polar Sea in the Arctic and Antarctic in all types of sea ice conditions and ice seasons. He also was a lead engineer in the field measurements for the US Maritime Administration's Trafficabilility Program measuring ice conditions and ship performance throughout the Alaskan Arctic over seven years and all ice seasons. He has since been a principal investigator in ice load measurements on the Nathaniel B. Palmer in Antarctica, the Swedish icebreaker Oden's trip to the North Pole, the Canadian icebreaker Louis St-Laurent's trip across the Central Arctic Basin with Polar Sea, the USCGC Juniper (WLB-201) Ice Trials in Green Bay on the Great Lakes, the USCGC Healy (WAGB-20) Ice Trails in Davis Strait off Greenland, the Primorye AfraMax tanker Ice Trials for Sakhalin 1 in the Tatar Strait in eastern Russia with the Russian icebreakers Krasin and Magadan, and the USCGC Mackinaw (WLBB-30) in Green Bay, the Straits of Mackinaw and Whitefish Bay on the Great Lakes. He has lead teams to measure performance in ice and open water on the US Antarctic Research Vessels, Nathaniel B. Palmer and Laurence M. Gould as well as the many US Coast Guard icebreakers such as the Bay Class, Juniper Class, Polar Class, Healy and Mackinaw. He has done the break-in of McMurdo Base in Antarctic under some of the worst conditions on record measuring the performance of the Russian icebreaker Krasin. He has been involved in the conceptual and feasibility design of many US Coast Guard and oil-related ships intended to operate in ice and the procurements of all the current National Science research ships operating in the Antarctic.
AGENDA:
| 1700 | Gather at USCG Yard Drydock Club |
| 1715 | Depart on brief Shipyard or Warehouse tour |
| 1800 | Begin social for those not on tour/those returning from tour |
| 1900 | Dinner |
| 1930 | Presentation |