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"Obviously, we're tracking the issue," said Pat Flynn, Alaska Railroad spokesman in Anchorage. Flynn said the railroad suffered no losses or capacity when Williams Cos. purchased MAPCO in 1998. The railroad expects the same to hold true after the sale of Williams. "We pulled MAPCO fuel cars and when MAPCO became Williams, we pulled Williams fuel cars. We'll pull somebody else's fuel cars because we'll still have a customer," Flynn said. The Alaska Railroad and Williams, which announced last week plans to sell its Alaska assets, together weathered criticism for a series of derailments and fuel spills over the past few years, including the largest in 1999 at Canyon and at Gold Creek, where 15 cars left the track, five of them spilling more than 120,000 gallons of jet fuel. Still, Flynn said Williams as a company has been a "great customer'' and will be missed. But Flynn expects the state-owned railroad will continue to work with many of the same employees after the sale of Williams, just as it did after the MAPCO buyout. "I expect most of the same people we are working with now, are the same people we'll be working with in the future," Flynn said. Jeff Cook, vice president of external affairs for Williams, said he, too, believes most of the same folks will stick around after the sale. "A lot of the value of this asset is the people we have," said Cook, himself a former MAPCO employee. Some 711 million gallons of petroleum products were moved by rail from Williams' North Pole refinery to Anchorage last year. Cook said he expects those levels to continue. Petroleum makes up most of the freight revenue for the railroad, about $35.7 million last year. Most of the petroleum product, about 1.7 million gallons a day, is jet fuel used at Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport. Williams provides more than half of the jet fuel used at Anchorage International, Cook said. Tesoro provides about 40 percent of the fuel via its Nikiski pipeline. Up to 10 percent of the fuel normally comes from producers outside Alaska and is shipped to Alaska's largest city in tankers and barges. Jet fuel haulage for the railroad is followed by diesel, which is transferred by barges to be used in the Bush for home heating and electrical generation. Fuel shipped from Williams' North Pole refinery to Anchorage averaged more than 100 rail cars a day in July and August last year, the most ever, Flynn said.
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