Cleanup of Doyon Rig 26 complete, accident enters final response stage

Doyon Rig 26 is off the tundra after the last pieces were recovered, removed and transported from the site, moving the Western North Slope accident out of the heavy-lift cleanup phase and into final response review. The Unified Command said response efforts advanced into Phase 3 after 100% of the downed rig had been fully recovered by March 31.

The accident happened Jan. 23 at about 4:40 to 4:45 p.m. while the 165-foot, 9.5-million-pound extended-reach drilling rig, nicknamed the Beast, was being moved on a gravel road about 6.5 miles northwest of Nuiqsut. North Slope Borough said all personnel were accounted for and there were no serious injuries. The borough also said there was no reported damage to community infrastructure, no reported impact to pipelines and no immediate threat to Nuiqsut. Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation assigned the spill ID 26399902301 to the incident.

The site carried high sensitivity from the start. DEC said the rig toppled onto snow-covered tundra less than 500 feet from a tributary to the Nechelik, or Nigliq, Channel of the Colville River, with the nearest oil and gas infrastructure about 50 feet away and the pipeline about 202 feet away. Neither was impacted. DEC also said the spill area lay within habitat for denning and non-denning polar bears, caribou, Arctic fox, muskox and ptarmigan. Trained wildlife observers saw one Arctic fox and a collared muskox in the area without observed harm.

Doyon said the rig was being operated on behalf of ConocoPhillips Alaska, and the Unified Command included Doyon Drilling, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, DEC, North Slope Borough and the Iñupiat Community of the Arctic Slope. The operational question now is no longer whether the wreck can be stabilized, but how quickly regulators and operators can close out the remaining paperwork, environmental follow-up and final reporting that follow a major industrial accident on the tundra.

The cleanup numbers show how large the response was. Doyon said the total estimated spill volume was 4,735 gallons, with crews recovering about 2,585 gallons by April 3. The company also said it removed 41 gallons of unspilled ethylene glycol from the rig’s coolant system, the full glycol volume on the rig. Earlier updates had tracked the recovery from about 47% deconstructed on Feb. 27 to about 76% removed on March 20, about 95% recovered on March 27 and 100% by March 31. For North Slope workers and nearby operators, the milestone means the most visible part of the response is over, but the incident is still not fully closed until the final review is complete.