The Aleutain Pribilof Island Community Development Association opened a fuel facility in False Pass earlier this month.
The False Pass Fuel Company, or FPFC, is now supplying fuel for local heating and road vehicle needs, the APICDA owned Bering Pacific Seafoods plant operations, the City of False pass and the fishing fleet. CEO of APICDA Larry Cotter says after the Peter Pan fisheries closed the fuel facility it owned for decades, his organization saw an opportunity.
“They closed that facility down about a year ago and that put us in a situation where there was a desperate need in the community for somebody to open and operate a fuel facility so we stepped up to the plate to do it.”
FPFC operates six tanks with a combined capacity of 210,000 gallons of diesel, stove oil and gasoline. Cotter says the construction of the new facility cost $2.3 million and took eight months of planning followed by three months of construction.
The tanks are situated near the False Pass City dock and Cotter says will be used for fuel sales to fishing vessels as well as land vehicles.
“We can provide fuel to any vessel. We do have a processing plant in False Pass called Bering Pacific Seafoods and we just about completed a $16 million expansion of that facility so it will operate year round having fuel services available in False Pass will certainly help encourage fishermen and others deliver to Bering Pacific Seafoods knowing that they can also acquire fuel there.”
False Pass is located on the eastern side of Unimak Island in the Aleutian Islands, over 600 air miles southwest of Anchorage. Cotter says a lot of vessels already go through False Pass on their way from the Gulf of Alaska to the Bering Sea or Bristol Bay. He says this new fuel facility should prove convenient for those vessels as well.