10 years ago this week

Alaska Journal of Commerce

Feb. 5, 1993

Tyson Foods looking into salmon fishery

By Eric Fry

Tyson Foods Inc. has a basic philosophy, says John Tyson, grandson of the founder: Segment, concentrate and dominate.

Representing the new owner of Arctic Alaska Fisheries Corp. - which catches and processes pollock, cod and crab off the coast of Alaska -- Tyson spoke Jan. 23 at the Southwest Alaska Municipal Conference of the need to expand and be a total seafood supplier.

"We'll probably be in the salmon fishery some small way this year," Tyson said later in an impromptu press conference at the Anchorage meeting. "We will go into those fisheries and ask, how can we work together, Tyson's marketing and distribution, with those people who do a very good job of catching salmon."

In October 1992, Tyson Foods bought the 34-vessel, Seattle-based Arctic Alaska for about $240 million, including some Tyson stock. And it bought assets of Louis Kemp Seafood Co., which processes retail imitation crab and lobster products in Olympia, Wash. and Duluth, Minn., for about $19 million in cash.

The publicity owned, Arkansas-based food giant -- with 1992 sales of $4.2 billion and a net income of $161 million -- has grown through acquisition.

"We have been a very aggressive acquiring company. We made the commitment to value-added products in the late '60s. We got tired of seeing the market go up and down. We wanted to figure out how to take commodity swings out of the business," said Tyson, vice president of operations.

Alaska Journal of Commerce

Feb. 5, 1993

BP will drill exploratory wells

Darley: 'They could add years to the life of the field'

By Margaret Bauman

BP Exploration (Alaska) Inc. will drill three exploratory wells on Alaska's North Slope in 1993 and participate in a fourth, says Julian Darley, president.

"The remarkable achievements of the past 12 months, combined with our ongoing investments, have already added tens of millions of barrels of new reserves at Prudhoe Bay," Darley said, in a speech Jan. 23 to participants in the annual gathering of the Alaska Support Industry Alliance. "They could add years to the life of the field E and they've prompted BP to reassess our view of Alaska's investment potential.

"Prudhoe Bay drilling was supposed to wind down over the next few years," Darley said. "But if we achieve the drilling improvements we now see as likely, we should be able to justify several hundred new wells."

-- Compiled by Ed Bennett.