An Alaska company says changing ice conditions in the North Slope area have allowed it to make a bulk fuel delivery to Prudhoe Bay by barge for the first time.&nbsp;

KTUU-TV reported Thursday that Colville Inc. says that the single trip carried 8&nbsp;million litres&nbsp;of fuel.&nbsp;

The fuel took 70 hours to unload before it was moved to a tank farm in the community of Deadhorse.&nbsp;

FILE - In this 2007 file photo, an oil transit pipeline runs across the tundra to flow station at the Prudhoe Bay oil field on Alaska's North Slope.The Obama administration is blocking new oil and gas drilling in the Arctic Ocean, handing a victory to environmentalists who say industrial activity in the icy waters will harm marine mammals and exacerbate global warming.

Arctic Drilling

A statement by Colville says that fuel for North Slope oil field operations is typically delivered over land by trucks pulling 16-metre&nbsp;tankers from a refinery in Valdez to Deadhorse, a roughly 1,368-kilometre trip.&nbsp;

Alaska's North Slope shaken by strongest recorded earthquake in region

A magnitude 6.4 earthquake struck Sunday morning 551 kilometres northeast of Fairbanks.

The 6.4 magnitude earthquake plotted along with the first 8 hours of aftershocks.

north slope earthquake

The 6.4 magnitude earthquake plotted along with the first eight hours of aftershocks.

Colville says it makes 2,000 of those trips each year, each hauling nearly&nbsp;37,854 litres of diesel.

A file photo of broken ice as the Finnish icebreaker MSV Nordica sails through the Beaufort Sea off the coast of Alaska. An Alaska company says changing ice conditions in the North Slope area have allowed it to make a bulk fuel delivery to Prudhoe Bay by barge for the first time.

Changing ice conditions clear way for historic fuel delivery by barge to Alaska's North Slope

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