We once again have completed the iceroad to the Badami Drill Pad.:drinkup As soon we completed that project we had to build a spur road about 2 miles to the edge of the Arctic Ocean and build a new exploratory drill pad known as the Red Wolf Drill site. The pad was 500ft x 500ft x 2ft thick in the shallowest section and took nearly 20,000 cubic yards of ice chips and water to construct. Once all the holes in the bottom were filled and iced in I built the remainder of the pad in 6 inch lifts. We had a 5 mile haul for the Ejector Trucks hauling the ice chips. That was the closest fresh water available lake that was about 95% grounded (very shallow). This allowed us to grind/mill and haul most of the ice off the lake for building the pad. We had a 2 mile haul for the water trucks drawing from a deeper lake. I built the final lift and finished the grade on the drill pad using a Trimble Laser controlled GCS 600 equipped 14H and Trimble GL720 Dual Plane Laser. We have owned this system for 5 years now and it still performs like new; even in the most adverse environment. It’s an amazing tool for a motor grader and is like having a grade checker riding in the cab with you. Even when you’re not grading you can drive over an area with the system on and check to determine how much fill is required to get to grade. It cuts the time in half and saves having to put a man out in the cold all day long. Set up time is pretty fast if you know your bench mark; the only trick up here is to keep it warm. 3 years ago I ran the system at 35 below with no heat on the laser and really had no problems other than battery life was a little shorter. By positioning it near a heater we solved 3 problems; we connect the laser to the heater’s generator battery so it's not running on the internal battery anymore, we can keep the laser warm though it is rated to operate at -30/35 degrees and the ES700 heater works as a great wind block since this is the only real hurdle to over come when using it. Laser controlled graders don’t do well when the laser is hit by a gust of wind. The slightest movement of the laser head translates in to the light prism jumping up and down about 4 tenths if you’re a couple hundred feet away from it. Makes for some really ugly grade. Regards, Randy
Just a couple more pictures Once the grade was finished we flooded it to make it glass smooth. It will all melt away in a couple months so next year we can do it all over again! Regards, Randy
Great story Randy. I always look forward to your posts. Sounds like good job security when you get to build the same road over again next year. Plus you have all the logistics figured out that way.
Great pics in a brutal environment, no dust though:tong
Probably because they are running all those water trucks on that job. :drinkup
Turbo, your ability to grasp the obvious is just over the edge unbelievable. baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
Surprised the water truck's not spittin out ice cubes
Just another thank you Randy!!! You are showing a lot of us a world that we will never see. keep warm
Great pictures man!
Randy are the water trucks insulated or heated?? I'd think after a few trips the inside of the tanks would begin to line themselves with ice buildup. You gotta remember us lower 48 guys have trouble understanding the little details of working in those conditions. Thanks as always for the updates and photos.
Richard They are custom built double wall tanks with urethane insulation between the two walls. It was quite a process to insulate these tanks. They had to hole saw a 2 inch hole in each chamber, then this urethane company came to the shop and pumped this liquid urethane into each hole/chamber. As the urethane cured it grew like a tree out each hole. Then they trimmed off the excess urethane, welded all the hole saw pieces back in place, had a body man smooth them all up and paint. Yes, they do get some build up each day. There is a hot water plant in Prudhoe Bay so about every two weeks they go over and get a load; it’s about 180 degree water. They can usually transfer that load of hot water to at least one other truck and sometimes two trucks. This cleans out all the ice and they’re good to go for another week or two. The pump house on the back is heated with a Cat twin fan auxilary heater and a 110 heater for when they are parked near camp. Regards, Randy
A million miles from nowhere, it's as flat as a pancake and yet, there is automated blade control. The Kool AId must be frozen up there, but still they drink it.
Thanks for the explanation Randy, figured there had to be something.
bluetop man not sure what you me by your post but randy is probably the most respected blade operator on here. if you were building that pad i'm sure they would let you stand in the -30 temps and pound all stakes you want so you didn't have to use gps.
I know the pads we build they require automated blade finish. Randy, what energy company are you working for?
Beachbum0286 The Badami iceroad project was for Savant. The company has some other work going on for BP and ENI, but I have not been on those projects yet. We did some work for Conoco Phillips at the beginning of this year and they just bid a project for Exxon Mobil and another for ASRC. Regards, Randy
Incredible Randy. Thank you for a look into a world I will never see for myself........... :usa
This is so amazing! Thank you for posting these pictures.
boy you sure have nicer equipment than when we built the first ice road into Badami. as i recall we headed East from East dock and more or less followed the beach until we reached Mikkelson bay and cut across the inner bay. if memory serves me (my wife says it does not, but that's my wife) we cut across to the old fish shack on the beach and then cut inland. the old boy that pushed that job for veco was a died in the wool NO DAK (from the Williston basin North Dakota), great guy and still works on the slope. that being said he sometimes got carried away with his ideas (we all came up with ideas to make things happen those days, thank god OSHA wasn't there then) we needed a ice drag as both of ours were busy. well he designed and had built a great ice drag, only problem is we didn't have anything big enough to drag it with. i think they hauled it out on a 250 tn lowboy and it squatted the tires on that, we had a D model 966 and couldn't budge it . we (5 of us) wound up spending 3 days in our cat train camp (8 x 20 skid with a gen set and no whiskey!!!!!!!) at the Badami site during a blow. once the road was finished i went out and drilled in the conductor for Badami #1 and got stuck in another blow for 2 days, oh well i guess thats life thanks for bringing back some good memories Randy. had the day off today and was going through my old Prudhoe photos, god i had a full head of black hair then.
Bigiron, thanks for posting the pictures. Equipment has changed a little since then huh!!!
Great Response Big Iron I really enjoyed that great response and the pictures. I also shared your pictures with some other operators here at Badami and they enjoyed seeing them. Our Iceroad starts from the Endicott Corridor and parallels the Arctic Ocean Shoreline about 1 mile inland. My oldest son surveyed this route with GPS and helped plan the route. In November he had to walk from Endicott all the way to Badami taking shots while another operator followed him with a Tucker Snow-Cat. Glad it was him and not me! After we crossed the Shaviovik River then the road works its way back over to the coastline. The Red Wolf Pad (in the previous pictures) is about 2 miles west of the Badami Pad and also sits right on the shoreline just like the Badami Pad; one corner of the pad is out on the sea ice and the south edge of the pad borders a lake. Nabors 7ES is now on Badami reworking one of the old wells. Then they will move to the Red Wolf and drill a new well. We are all on weather hold as of yesterday due extreme cold. Thank goodness it’s only about 10 mph winds today. Since we’re on hold here I had time to get online and do some responding myself. I’ll bet you guys didn’t have that luxury back then! Did you work on the construction of the final gravel pad at Badami? If so did the gravel come from the Shav. Mine Site about 3 miles west of Badami? If you have any other pictures I would sure enjoy seeing them and so would some other here in Badami and on this forum. We all got a good laugh when we saw your ice-shack; the ice-shacks have not kept up with the evolving equipment. They still look about the same! Thanks again for responding. Randy
boy that lad is tougher than i am, that's quite a hike and i assume during the winter if a sno-cat was following. that has got to be 20+ miles as the crow files from Endicott, you evidently raised that lad with a good work ethic!!!!! i had noticed that the ice houses in your photos about the same as ones from the late 80's early 90's. i guess there is only so much you can do to building with a hole in the floor with little propane heater to keep the ice hole open. that old KW water truck had a 8v-71 DD in it and during the winter you couldn't run it hard enough to build any heat in the damn thing, was usually was warmer in the ice house than the truck!! we all thought we had died and went to heaven when we got the new C-500's and the 300 bbl vac tanks with real heaters!!!!! that old 16G was still on the slope the last time i was up there for VECO just before the CH2 purchase. i don't think there is enough numbers on a calculator to tell how many hours are on that machine, but it just keeps on tickin. i saw they were using the articulated water tankers on the Oooguruk ice road the last time i was there. however some things never change and accidents will happen one of my hands tipped one over last year on a landfill cap in S Georgia. i couldn't tell you how many times we set the old DJB's upright when they first came on the slope, usually it was the same the frt end went one way and back end the other. at least the new ones you don't have to replace the steering cylinders every time it goes over. no i did not work on the gravel pad. as i recall we built road there 2 years running for the exploratory work. i don't recall how many conductor's we drilled in those 2 years, but i do remember they were all wet holes and the oilers took a real beating on them. internet back then. hell as much as i hate to admit it the girls in accounting were still using an abacus for adding up the billings enjoy a day off even if you are in camp and keep your stories/pictures coming .