''Helix Producer I'' is a ship-shaped

monohull image:monohull.svg, right A monohull is a type of boat having only one hull (watercraft), hull, unlike multihulled boats which can have two or more individual hulls connected to one another. Fundamental concept Among the earliest hulls were simple ...

floating production and offloading vessel, converted from the ferry MV ''Karl Carstens''. It has no storage capability.

''MV Karl Carstens''

The ship was built in 1986 for Deutsche Bundesbahn as a roll-on roll-off (RORO)

ferry A ferry is a ship, watercraft or amphibious vehicle used to carry passengers, and sometimes vehicles and cargo, across a body of water. A passenger ferry with many stops, such as in Venice, Italy, is sometimes called a water bus or water taxi ...

serving on the

Vogelfluglinie The (German) or (Danish) is a transport corridor between Copenhagen, Denmark, and Hamburg, Germany. As the Danish and German names (literally: '' bird flight line'') imply, the corridor is also an important bird migration route between arctic ...

, a connection between

Fehmarn Fehmarn (, da, Femern; from Old Wagrian Slavic "''Fe More''", meaning "''In the Sea''") is an island in the Baltic Sea, off the eastern coast of Germany's northernmost state of Schleswig-Holstein. It is Germany's third-largest island, after Rüg ...

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

and

Denmark ) , song = ( en, "King Christian stood by the lofty mast") , song_type = National and royal anthem , image_map = EU-Denmark.svg , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Danish Realm, Kingdom of Denmark ...

. It remained in service from 1986 until 1997.

''Helix Producer I''

The ship was reconfigured as a Floating Production vessel and converted between 2006–2008 at the

Viktor Lenac Shipyard The Viktor Lenac Shipyard ( hr, Brodogradilište Viktor Lenac JSC or ''Shipyard Viktor Lenac d.d. (JSC)'') is situated on the northern Croatian Adriatic coast, 3 km from the largest Croatian port It was founded in 1896, and was among the fir ...

Croatia , image_flag = Flag of Croatia.svg , image_coat = Coat of arms of Croatia.svg , anthem = "Lijepa naša domovino"("Our Beautiful Homeland") , image_map = , map_caption = , capit ...

. Topside production facilities were designed by OFD Engineering in Houston, Texas and installed in 2009 at the Kiewit shipyard in

Corpus Christi, Texas Corpus Christi (; Ecclesiastical Latin: "'' Body of Christ"'') is a coastal city in the South Texas region of the U.S. state of Texas and the county seat and largest city of Nueces County, it also extends into Aransas, Kleberg, and San Patrici ...

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

. ''Helix Producer I'' has a Disconectable Transfer system (DTS) designed and supplied by Flexible Engineered Solutions LTD (FES), UK, and consists of a riser buoy supporting sub-sea risers and control umbilicals that would be connected to a deep water well and can be released from the hull, allowing the vessel to move out of the way of an approaching

hurricane A tropical cyclone is a rapidly rotating storm system characterized by a low-pressure center, a closed low-level atmospheric circulation, strong winds, and a spiral arrangement of thunderstorms that produce heavy rain and squalls. Depend ...

. After the storm, the vessel would return to the site and reconnect the buoy resuming normal oil extraction. It is operated by the

Helix Energy Solutions Group Helix Energy Solutions Inc., known as Cal Dive International prior to 2006, is an American oil and gas services company headquartered in Houston, Texas. The company is a global provider of offshore services in well intervention and ROV operatio ...

and was scheduled to operate on the Phoenix Oil Field in the

Gulf of Mexico The Gulf of Mexico ( es, Golfo de México) is an oceanic basin, ocean basin and a marginal sea of the Atlantic Ocean, largely surrounded by the North American continent. It is bounded on the northeast, north and northwest by the Gulf Coast of ...

, but on 14 June 2010 Helix announced that the ship would be directed to assist BP at the Deepwater Horizon oil spill site. In its new configuration the ship has a length of , a breadth of (increased from before ), a depth of , and a draft of . The vessel has a maximum displacement of , and as a light ship of .

Service at ''Deepwater Horizon'' site

In June 2010, BP announced that ''Helix Producer I'' would join '' Discoverer Enterprise'' and '' Toisa Pisces'' at the Deepwater Horizon site to process oil that is flowing from the deepwater well. While ''Discover Enterprise'' can process about 18,000 barrels (760,000 US gallons; 2,900 cubic metres) of oil per day, ''Helix Producer I'' can handle about 30,000 barrels. The estimate of the uncontrolled oil flow at that time was up to 60,000 barrels. It was anticipated that ''Helix Producer I'' would be used for 2 months for this mission. Oil from ''Helix Producer I'' was to be offloaded by a shuttle tanker. Starting in early August mud, later cement was pumped into the well, eventually closing it, so that by 19 September 2010, it could be announced that the

Macondo Macondo is a fictional town described in Gabriel García Márquez's novel '' One Hundred Years of Solitude''. It is the home town of the Buendía family. Aracataca Macondo is often supposed to draw from García Márquez's childhood town, Aracat ...

Well had been finally killed.

References

{{Deepwater 1986 ships Floating production storage and offloading vessels Ships built in Kiel Merchant ships of the Bahamas Deepwater Horizon oil spill