ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — A Russian tanker and its crew have begun offloading more than a million gallons of fuel to an iced-in city along the western coast of Alaska.
Two parallel hoses, each 700 yards long, are stretched between the tanker Renda and a pipeline that will deliver the fuel to storage tanks in the city of Nome. One is carrying gasoline, the other diesel fuel.
The transfer could be finished within 36 hours or it could take as long as five days. It started near sundown Monday, after crews laid the hoses along a stretch of Bering Sea ice to the pipeline that begins on a rock causeway 550 yards from the tanker, said Jason Evans, board chairman of the Sitnasuak Native Corp.
Sitnasuak owns the local fuel company, Bonanza Fuel, and has been working closely with Vitus Marine, the supplier that arranged for the delivery of the 1.3 million gallons of fuel.
State officials said the transfer must start during daylight, but can continue in darkness. Nome has just five hours of daylight this time of year.
The city of 3,500 didn’t get its last pre-winter barge fuel delivery because of a massive November storm. Without the Renda’s delivery, Nome would run out of fuel by March or April, long before the next barge delivery is possible.
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