12 inch section of 48 inch diameter pipe from the Transalaska Pipeline

This pipeline section is from the Trans-Alaska pipeline, which was constructed between 1975 and 1977 to transport crude oil produced in the Prudhoe Bay oil fields in the isolated north coast of Alaska, to the southern coast of the state at the Prince William Sound. The Prudhoe Bay oil fields are the largest oil fields in North America, and they produce more crude oil than any other oil fields on the continent. Fittingly, the Trans-Alaska pipeline is one of the world's largest pipelines which extends over 800 miles and connects eleven pump stations and hundreds of miles of additional feeder pipelines and covers hundreds of thousands of acres of oil fields.

This pipeline is owned and operated privately by the Alyeska Pipeline Service Company, which was founded in 1970, and who contracted the Nipon Kokan Corporation (NKK) from Japan to produce the pipe sections, which began to arrive in Alaska as early as 1968.

The Trans-Alaska pipeline continues to operate today, and since 1977 has produced approximately 17 billion barrels of oil.