ConocoPhillips Alaska employees evacuated due to prolonged natural gas leak on the North Slope.
The Alpine Central Facility serves as the hub for the Alpine oil field, photographed on February 9, 2016.
The company said it “relocated” some of its non-essential employees Monday afternoon “out of an abundance of caution,” including workers at the CD1 pad and its Alpine central processing facility and camp, the statement said. A ConocoPhillips spokesman would not say how many employees were affected, or where they were moved, adding that the company was working to provide additional information.
Alpine stayed operational as of Tuesday and continues to supply the village of Nuiqsut with the gas that residents and institutions use for heating. Nuiqsut is already heavily impacted by oil development, and residents there reacted to news of the gas leak with concern. City officials are encouraging residents to be ready to evacuate if the need arises.
The city is initiating air sampling to assess local air quality, Ahtuangaruak said. She encouraged residents who have concerns about air quality to contact the Nuiqsut Utilities Cooperative, which provides the natural gas heat source to the village, to conduct air sampling around their house. Nuiqsut’s biggest institutional gas consumers, like the school and power plant, temporarily switched to fueling with diesel during the leak, and it takes time to reduce the amount of mercaptan added to the village’s gas supply — so the gas that residential customers are currently burning has a larger mercaptan concentration, said Mitchak Gatten, an official with the borough’s risk management office.
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