ALASKA: Birth Pangs of a Boom

More than 10,000 workers—petroleum engineers and roustabouts, cooks and nurses—are standing by for the historic moment. Next week, after six years of hassle, the first 80-ft. section of pipe will finally be laid in the biggest private construction project in history: the much needed, $6 billion Alaska pipeline. When it is finished in mid-1977, a 798-mile conduit will begin to bring as much as 2 million bbl. of oil a day from the wind-bitten wastes of the far north to the ice-free port of Valdez. The oil will be shipped by tanker to the Lower 48, making the U.S. much...

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