n Alaska, bulk fuel farms are both the backbone of a community—providing fuel for generation, which translates to heat and electricity—and one of its greatest potential hazards, due to the possibility of fuel spills from aging piping, damaged tanks, or spills during fuel deliveries.

According to the Alaska Energy Authority, most rural bulk fuel tank farms in Alaska were built in the ‘50s and ‘60s using second-hand equipment and without attention to standards or codes.

In late ‘80s, the US Coast Guard raised concerns over fuel deliveries to tank farms with “deficient piping to and within the tank farm” and threatened to block fuel deliveries unless the issues were addressed.

With funding from federal block grants, between 1993 and 1997 the Alaska Energy Authority replaced piping systems in about sixty communities and completed major tank farm projects in twenty villages.

The biggest challenges the teams in Western Alaska and the Arctic witnessed were directly related to climate change: coastal erosion, changes to the home range of key subsistence food sources, increased commercial vessel traffic, and thawing permafrost, notes Commander Jereme Altendorf, an Arctic emergency management specialist at Sector Anchorage.

Residents were concerned about possible fuel spills and the resulting contamination—not to mention the dangers of having limited or no electricity for extended periods.

“We learned that they only receive one fuel delivery each year. We were there to inspect their fuel tanks to ensure they could survive the coming winter without a fuel or heating oil spill and to talk about pollution response efforts in the Bering Strait should a spill ever occur. The residents we met described this increasingly-transited region as their ‘grocery store’ and explained the tragic impacts a major pollution incident would have on their village and their people,” says Captain Leanne Lusk, commander of Sector Anchorage, after visiting Little Diomede in 2021.

Operating out of Anchorage, Latitude 63 is a construction and business consulting company named for the line of latitude that runs through the peak of Denali. The name represents the height of excellence the company seeks for its clients’ projects. The company is jointly owned by Mike Martin and Chip Anderson.

Anderson says the company worked with the Alaska Energy Authority to replace, repair, and upgrade pipework for the fuel tank farms in both Beaver and Chalkyitsik.

The project began in a former gravel pit, Anderson says. Using a contractor owner/contractor operator method, Crowley Government Services is the owner and operator of the site, which includes three new fuel tanks. Although it serves Eielson, it’s not on the base itself, he notes. The tank farm can receive fuel from the nearby refinery, store the fuel, or pump it to the base as needed.

In October 2023, the Darwin Port stood up a 25-ton loading arm, a huge milestone. Two cranes, one 200-ton and one 95-ton, set the structure, which was shipped from Germany, into place.The loading arm will allow fuel to be offloaded from ships to make its way down the 3-kilometer pipeline to the tanks for storage in support of the US Military Global Defense System.

Latitude 63’s cooperation with Crowley now spans the globe. The company’s Australian subsidiary, Latitude 63 Australia, is wrapping up a similar contractor owner/contractor operator fuel tank farm project called Project Caymus in Darwin, Australia.

In August, Latitude 63 Australia reached the finish line for Project Caymus, a Jet A-1 and JP-5 bulk fuel storage facility. The Latitude 63 Australia crew was busy standing up the operations building and putting the final touches on the massive 11-tank, 80 million-gallon fuel facility that will play a crucial role in support of the Indo-Pacific Global Defense System. The project includes pipeline tie-ins, rail unloading capabilities, and onsite product add-in capabilities, so operators can inject drag-reducing additives to increase the pipeline capacity or inject corrosion inhibitors when needed, Anderson says.

The company’s involvement highlights its capabilities in handling large-scale, complex projects that are integral to military operations and global defense logistics. Latitude 63 Australia worked closely with local contractors, suppliers, and regulatory bodies to ensure compliance with environmental and safety standards.

This project supports the F-35 Defense System, which is important in maintaining a strong defense presence in the Indo-Pacific, a region of growing geopolitical significance.