![Refurbishment Platform for Drilling Rigs -- Corpus Christi](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/22/Refurbishment_Platform_for_Drilling_Rigs_--_Corpus_Christi.jpg)
An oil platform (or oil rig, offshore platform, oil production platform, and similar terms) is a large structure with facilities to extract and process
petroleum
Petroleum, also known as crude oil, or simply oil, is a naturally occurring yellowish-black liquid mixture of mainly hydrocarbons, and is found in geological formations. The name ''petroleum'' covers both naturally occurring unprocessed crud ...
and
natural gas
Natural gas (also called fossil gas or simply gas) is a naturally occurring mixture of gaseous hydrocarbons consisting primarily of methane in addition to various smaller amounts of other higher alkanes. Low levels of trace gases like carbo ...
that lie in rock formations beneath the
seabed
The seabed (also known as the seafloor, sea floor, ocean floor, and ocean bottom) is the bottom of the ocean. All floors of the ocean are known as 'seabeds'.
The structure of the seabed of the global ocean is governed by plate tectonics. Most of ...
. Many oil platforms will also have facilities to accommodate the workers, although it is also common to have a separate accommodation platform bridge linked to the production platform. Most commonly, oil platforms engage in activities on the
continental shelf, though they can also be used in lakes, inshore waters, and inland seas. Depending on the circumstances, the platform may be
fixed
Fixed may refer to:
* ''Fixed'' (EP), EP by Nine Inch Nails
* ''Fixed'', an upcoming 2D adult animated film directed by Genndy Tartakovsky
* Fixed (typeface), a collection of monospace bitmap fonts that is distributed with the X Window System
* ...
to the ocean floor, consist of an
artificial island
An artificial island is an island that has been constructed by people rather than formed by natural means. Artificial islands may vary in size from small islets reclaimed solely to support a single pillar of a building or structure to those th ...
, or
float
Float may refer to:
Arts and entertainment Music Albums
* ''Float'' (Aesop Rock album), 2000
* ''Float'' (Flogging Molly album), 2008
* ''Float'' (Styles P album), 2013
Songs
* "Float" (Tim and the Glory Boys song), 2022
* "Float", by Bush ...
. In some arrangements the main facility may have storage facilities for the processed oil. Remote
subsea
Subsea technology involves fully submerged ocean equipment, operations, or applications, especially when some distance offshore, in deep ocean waters, or on the seabed. The term ''subsea'' is frequently used in connection with oceanography, marin ...
wells may also be connected to a platform by flow lines and by
umbilical connections. These sub-sea facilities may include of one or more subsea wells or manifold centres for multiple wells.
Offshore drilling presents environmental challenges, both from the produced hydrocarbons and the materials used during the drilling operation. Controversies include the ongoing
US offshore drilling debate
The United States offshore drilling debate is an ongoing debate in the United States about whether, the extent to which, in which areas, and under what conditions, further offshore drilling should be allowed in U.S.-administered waters.
The iss ...
.
There are many different types of facilities from which offshore drilling operations take place. These include bottom-founded drilling rigs (
jackup barges and swamp barges), combined drilling and production facilities, either bottom-founded or floating platforms, and deepwater mobile offshore drilling units (MODU), including semi-submersibles and drillships. These are capable of operating in water depths up to . In shallower waters, the mobile units are anchored to the seabed. However, in deeper water (more than ), the
semisubmersible
Semi-submersible may refer to a self-propelled vessel, such as:
*Heavy-lift ship, which partially submerge to allow their cargo (another ship) to float into place for transport
*Narco-submarine, some of which remained partially on the surface
*Se ...
s or
drillship
A drillship is a merchant vessel designed for use in exploratory offshore drilling of new oil and gas wells or for scientific drilling purposes. In recent years the vessels have been used in deepwater and ultra-deepwater applications, equipped ...
s are maintained at the required drilling location using
dynamic positioning
Dynamic positioning (DP) is a computer-controlled system to automatically maintain a vessel's position and heading by using its own propellers and thrusters. Position reference sensors, combined with wind sensors, motion sensors and gyrocompass ...
.
History
![Oil wells just offshore at Summerland, California, c](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5d/Oil_wells_just_offshore_at_Summerland%2C_California%2C_c.1915.jpg)
Around 1891, the first submerged oil wells were drilled from platforms built on piles in the fresh waters of the
Grand Lake St. Marys
Grand Lake St. Marys State Park is a public recreation area located on Grand Lake in Mercer and Auglaize counties, Ohio. Grand Lake is the largest inland lake in Ohio in terms of area, but is shallow, with an average depth of only . The stat ...
(a.k.a. Mercer County Reservoir) in
Ohio
Ohio () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Of the fifty U.S. states, it is the 34th-largest by area, and with a population of nearly 11.8 million, is the seventh-most populous and tenth-most densely populated. The sta ...
. The wide but shallow reservoir was built from 1837 to 1845 to provide water to the
Miami and Erie Canal.
Around 1896, the first submerged oil wells in salt water were drilled in the portion of the
Summerland field extending under the
Santa Barbara Channel
The Santa Barbara Channel is a portion of the Southern California Bight and separates the mainland of California from the northern Channel Islands. It is generally south of the city of Santa Barbara, and west of the Oxnard Plain in Ventura Cou ...
in
California
California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...
. The wells were drilled from piers extending from land out into the channel.
Other notable early submerged drilling activities occurred on the Canadian side of
Lake Erie
Lake Erie ( "eerie") is the fourth largest lake by surface area of the five Great Lakes in North America and the eleventh-largest globally. It is the southernmost, shallowest, and smallest by volume of the Great Lakes and therefore also h ...
since 1913 and
Caddo Lake
Caddo Lake (french: Lac Caddo) is a lake and bayou (wetland) on the border between Texas and Louisiana, in northern Harrison County and southern Marion County in Texas and western Caddo Parish in Louisiana. The lake is named after the Caddoans ...
in
Louisiana
Louisiana , group=pronunciation (French: ''La Louisiane'') is a state in the Deep South and South Central regions of the United States. It is the 20th-smallest by area and the 25th most populous of the 50 U.S. states. Louisiana is borde ...
in the 1910s. Shortly thereafter, wells were drilled in tidal zones along the
Gulf Coast
The Gulf Coast of the United States, also known as the Gulf South, is the coast, coastline along the Southern United States where they meet the Gulf of Mexico. The list of U.S. states and territories by coastline, coastal states that have a shor ...
of
Texas
Texas (, ; Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2020, it is the second-largest U.S. state by ...
and Louisiana. The
Goose Creek field near
Baytown, Texas is one such example. In the 1920s, drilling was done from concrete platforms in
Lake Maracaibo,
Venezuela
Venezuela (; ), officially the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela ( es, link=no, República Bolivariana de Venezuela), is a country on the northern coast of South America, consisting of a continental landmass and many islands and islets in th ...
.
The oldest offshore well recorded in Infield's offshore database is the
Bibi Eibat well which came on stream in 1923 in
Azerbaijan
Azerbaijan (, ; az, Azərbaycan ), officially the Republic of Azerbaijan, , also sometimes officially called the Azerbaijan Republic is a transcontinental country located at the boundary of Eastern Europe and Western Asia. It is a part of t ...
. Landfill was used to raise shallow portions of the
Caspian Sea
The Caspian Sea is the world's largest inland body of water, often described as the world's largest lake or a full-fledged sea. An endorheic basin, it lies between Europe and Asia; east of the Caucasus, west of the broad steppe of Central Asia ...
.
In the early 1930s,
the Texas Company developed the first mobile steel barges for drilling in the brackish coastal areas of the gulf.
In 1937,
Pure Oil Company
Pure Oil Company was an American petroleum company founded in 1914 and sold to what is now Union Oil Company of California in 1965. The Pure Oil name returned in 1993 as a cooperative (based in Rock Hill, South Carolina since 2008) which has grow ...
(now
Chevron Corporation) and its partner
Superior Oil Company (now part of
ExxonMobil Corporation
ExxonMobil Corporation (commonly shortened to Exxon) is an American multinational oil and gas corporation headquartered in Irving, Texas. It is the largest direct descendant of John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil, and was formed on November 3 ...
) used a fixed platform to develop a field in of water, one mile (1.6 km) offshore of
Calcasieu Parish, Louisiana
Calcasieu Parish (; french: Paroisse de Calcasieu) is a parish located on the southwestern border of the U.S. state of Louisiana. As of the 2020 census, the population was 216,785. The parish seat is Lake Charles.
Calcasieu Parish is part ...
.
In 1938, Humble Oil built a mile-long wooden trestle with railway tracks into the sea at McFadden Beach on the Gulf of Mexico, placing a derrick at its end – this was later destroyed by a hurricane.
In 1945, concern for American control of its offshore oil reserves caused President
Harry Truman
Harry S. Truman (May 8, 1884December 26, 1972) was the 33rd president of the United States, serving from 1945 to 1953. A leader of the Democratic Party, he previously served as the 34th vice president from January to April 1945 under Franklin ...
to issue an Executive Order unilaterally extending American territory to the edge of its continental shelf, an act that effectively ended the
3-mile limit
The three-mile limit refers to a traditional and now largely obsolete conception of the international law of the seas which defined a country's territorial waters, for the purposes of trade regulation and exclusivity, as extending as far as the r ...
"
freedom of the seas
Freedom of the seas ( la, mare liberum, lit. "free sea") is a principle in the law of the sea. It stresses freedom to navigate the oceans. It also disapproves of war fought in water. The freedom is to be breached only in a necessary inter ...
" regime.
In 1946, Magnolia Petroleum (now
ExxonMobil) drilled at a site off the coast, erecting a platform in of water off
St. Mary Parish, Louisiana
St. Mary Parish (french: Paroisse de Sainte-Marie) is a parish located in the U.S. state of Louisiana. As of the 2010 census, the population was 54,650. The parish seat is Franklin. The parish was created in 1811.
St. Mary Parish comprises th ...
.
In early 1947, Superior Oil erected a drilling/production platform in of water some 18 miles off
Vermilion Parish, Louisiana
Vermilion Parish (french: Paroisse de Vermillion) is a parish located in the U.S. state of Louisiana, created in 1844. The parish seat is Abbeville. Vermilion Parish is part of the Lafayette metropolitan statistical area, and located in southern ...
. But it was
Kerr-McGee
The Kerr-McGee Corporation, founded in 1929, was an American energy company involved in oil exploration, production of crude oil, natural gas, perchlorate and uranium mining and milling in various countries. On June 23, 2006, Anadarko Petroleum ...
Oil Industries (now part of
Occidental Petroleum), as operator for partners
Phillips Petroleum (
ConocoPhillips) and
Stanolind Oil & Gas (
BP), that completed its historic Ship Shoal Block 32 well in October 1947, months before Superior actually drilled a discovery from their Vermilion platform farther offshore. In any case, that made Kerr-McGee's well the first oil discovery drilled out of sight of land.
The British
Maunsell Forts
The Maunsell Forts are armed towers built in the Thames and Mersey estuaries during the Second World War to help defend the United Kingdom. They were operated as army and navy forts, and named after their designer, Guy Maunsell. The forts were ...
constructed during
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...
are considered the direct predecessors of modern offshore platforms. Having been pre-constructed in a very short time, they were then floated to their location and placed on the shallow bottom of the
Thames
The River Thames ( ), known alternatively in parts as the River Isis, is a river that flows through southern England including London. At , it is the longest river entirely in England and the second-longest in the United Kingdom, after the R ...
and the
Mersey
The River Mersey () is in North West England. Its name derives from Old English and means "boundary river", possibly referring to its having been a border between the ancient kingdoms of Mercia and Northumbria. For centuries it has formed part ...
estuary.
In 1954, the first
jackup oil rig was ordered by
Zapata Oil
Emiliano Zapata Salazar (; August 8, 1879 – April 10, 1919) was a Mexican revolutionary. He was a leading figure in the Mexican Revolution of 1910–1920, the main leader of the people's revolution in the Mexican state of Morelos, and the i ...
. It was designed by
R. G. LeTourneau
Robert Gilmour LeTourneau (November 30, 1888 – June 1, 1969), born in Richford, Vermont, he was a prolific inventor of earthmoving machinery and the founder of LeTourneau Technologies, Inc. His factories supplied LeTourneau machines which rep ...
and featured three electro-mechanically operated lattice-type legs. Built on the shores of the
Mississippi river
The Mississippi River is the second-longest river and chief river of the second-largest drainage system in North America, second only to the Hudson Bay drainage system. From its traditional source of Lake Itasca in northern Minnesota, it fl ...
by the LeTourneau Company, it was launched in December 1955, and christened "Scorpion". The Scorpion was put into operation in May 1956 off
Port Aransas
Port Aransas ( ) is a city in Nueces County, Texas, United States. This city is 180 miles southeast of San Antonio. The population was 2,904 at the 2020 census. Port Aransas is the only established town on Mustang Island. It is located north of ...
, Texas. It was lost in 1969.
When offshore drilling moved into deeper waters of up to , fixed platform rigs were built, until demands for drilling equipment was needed in the to depth of the Gulf of Mexico, the first
jack-up rigs
A jackup rig or a self-elevating unit is a type of mobile platform that consists of a buoyant hull fitted with a number of movable legs, capable of raising its hull over the surface of the sea. The buoyant hull enables transportation of the unit ...
began appearing from specialized offshore drilling contractors such as forerunners of ENSCO International.
The first
semi-submersible
Semi-submersible may refer to a self-propelled vessel, such as:
* Heavy-lift ship, which partially submerge to allow their cargo (another ship) to float into place for transport
*Narco-submarine, some of which remained partially on the surface
* ...
resulted from an unexpected observation in 1961.
Blue Water Drilling Company
Blue is one of the three primary colours in the RYB colour model (traditional colour theory), as well as in the RGB (additive) colour model. It lies between violet and cyan on the spectrum of visible light. The eye perceives blue when ob ...
owned and operated the four-column submersible Blue Water Rig No.1 in the Gulf of Mexico for
Shell Oil Company
Shell USA, Inc. (formerly Shell Oil Company, Inc.) is the United States-based wholly owned subsidiary of Shell plc, a UK-based transnational corporation " oil major" which is amongst the largest oil companies in the world. Approximately 18,0 ...
. As the pontoons were not sufficiently buoyant to support the weight of the rig and its consumables, it was towed between locations at a draught midway between the top of the pontoons and the underside of the deck. It was noticed that the motions at this draught were very small, and Blue Water Drilling and Shell jointly decided to try operating the rig in its floating mode. The concept of an anchored, stable floating deep-sea platform had been designed and tested back in the 1920s by
Edward Robert Armstrong
Edward Robert Armstrong (1876–1955) was a Canadian- American engineer and inventor who in 1927 proposed a series of "seadrome" floating airport platforms for airplanes to land on and refuel for transatlantic flights. While his original concept ...
for the purpose of operating aircraft with an invention known as the "seadrome". The first purpose-built drilling
semi-submersible
Semi-submersible may refer to a self-propelled vessel, such as:
* Heavy-lift ship, which partially submerge to allow their cargo (another ship) to float into place for transport
*Narco-submarine, some of which remained partially on the surface
* ...
''Ocean Driller'' was launched in 1963. Since then, many semi-submersibles have been purpose-designed for the drilling industry mobile offshore fleet.
The first offshore
drillship
A drillship is a merchant vessel designed for use in exploratory offshore drilling of new oil and gas wells or for scientific drilling purposes. In recent years the vessels have been used in deepwater and ultra-deepwater applications, equipped ...
was the ''CUSS 1'' developed for the
Mohole project to drill into the Earth's crust.
As of June, 2010, there were over 620 mobile offshore drilling rigs (Jackups, semisubs, drillships, barges) available for service in the competitive rig fleet.
One of the world's deepest hubs is currently the
Perdido in the Gulf of Mexico, floating in 2,438 meters of water. It is operated by
Royal Dutch Shell
Shell plc is a British multinational oil and gas company headquartered in London, England. Shell is a public limited company with a primary listing on the London Stock Exchange (LSE) and secondary listings on Euronext Amsterdam and the New Yo ...
and was built at a cost of $3 billion.
The deepest operational platform is the Petrobras America Cascade FPSO in the Walker Ridge 249 field in 2,600 meters of water.
Main offshore basins
![Gulf Offshore Platform](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/ba/Gulf_Offshore_Platform.jpg)
Notable offshore basins include:
* the
North Sea
The North Sea lies between Great Britain, Norway, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium. An epeiric sea, epeiric sea on the European continental shelf, it connects to the Atlantic Ocean through the English Channel in the south and the ...
* the
Gulf of Mexico
The Gulf of Mexico ( es, Golfo de México) is an 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 the United ...
(offshore
Texas
Texas (, ; Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2020, it is the second-largest U.S. state by ...
,
Louisiana
Louisiana , group=pronunciation (French: ''La Louisiane'') is a state in the Deep South and South Central regions of the United States. It is the 20th-smallest by area and the 25th most populous of the 50 U.S. states. Louisiana is borde ...
,
Mississippi
Mississippi () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States, bordered to the north by Tennessee; to the east by Alabama; to the south by the Gulf of Mexico; to the southwest by Louisiana; and to the northwest by Arkansas. Miss ...
,
Alabama
(We dare defend our rights)
, anthem = "Alabama"
, image_map = Alabama in United States.svg
, seat = Montgomery
, LargestCity = Huntsville
, LargestCounty = Baldwin County
, LargestMetro = Greater Birmingham
, area_total_km2 = 135,765 ...
and
Florida
Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, and to ...
)
*
California
California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...
(in the
Los Angeles Basin
The Los Angeles Basin is a sedimentary Structural basin, basin located in Southern California, in a region known as the Peninsular Ranges. The basin is also connected to an wikt:anomalous, anomalous group of east-west trending chains of mountai ...
and
Santa Barbara Channel
The Santa Barbara Channel is a portion of the Southern California Bight and separates the mainland of California from the northern Channel Islands. It is generally south of the city of Santa Barbara, and west of the Oxnard Plain in Ventura Cou ...
, part of the Ventura Basin)
* the Caspian Sea (notably some major fields offshore
Azerbaijan
Azerbaijan (, ; az, Azərbaycan ), officially the Republic of Azerbaijan, , also sometimes officially called the Azerbaijan Republic is a transcontinental country located at the boundary of Eastern Europe and Western Asia. It is a part of t ...
)
* the
Campos and
Santos Basin
The Santos Basin ( pt, Bacia de Santos) is an approximately large mostly offshore sedimentary basin. It is located in the south Atlantic Ocean, some southeast of Santos, Brazil. The basin is one of the Brazilian basins to have resulted from th ...
s off the coasts of
Brazil
Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...
*
Newfoundland and
Nova Scotia
Nova Scotia ( ; ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is one of the three Maritime provinces and one of the four Atlantic provinces. Nova Scotia is Latin for "New Scotland".
Most of the population are native Eng ...
(
Atlantic Canada)
* several fields off
West Africa
West Africa or Western Africa is the westernmost region of Africa. The United Nations defines Western Africa as the 16 countries of Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Mali, M ...
most notably west of
Nigeria
Nigeria ( ), , ig, Naìjíríyà, yo, Nàìjíríà, pcm, Naijá , ff, Naajeeriya, kcg, Naijeriya officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a country in West Africa. It is situated between the Sahel to the north and the Gulf o ...
and
Angola
, national_anthem = " Angola Avante"()
, image_map =
, map_caption =
, capital = Luanda
, religion =
, religion_year = 2020
, religion_ref =
, coordina ...
* offshore fields in
South East Asia
Southeast Asia, also spelled South East Asia and South-East Asia, and also known as Southeastern Asia, South-eastern Asia or SEA, is the geographical south-eastern region of Asia, consisting of the regions that are situated south of mainland ...
and
Sakhalin
Sakhalin ( rus, Сахали́н, r=Sakhalín, p=səxɐˈlʲin; ja, 樺太 ''Karafuto''; zh, c=, p=Kùyèdǎo, s=库页岛, t=庫頁島; Manchu: ᠰᠠᡥᠠᠯᡳᠶᠠᠨ, ''Sahaliyan''; Orok: Бугата на̄, ''Bugata nā''; Nivkh ...
, Russia
* major offshore oil fields are located in the
Persian Gulf
The Persian Gulf ( fa, خلیج فارس, translit=xalij-e fârs, lit=Gulf of Fars, ), sometimes called the ( ar, اَلْخَلِيْجُ ٱلْعَرَبِيُّ, Al-Khalīj al-ˁArabī), is a mediterranean sea in Western Asia. The bod ...
such as Safaniya, Manifa and Marjan which belong to Saudi Arabia and are developed by Saudi Aramco.
* fields in
India
India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...
(Mumbai High, K G Basin-East Coast Of India, Tapti Field,
Gujarat
Gujarat (, ) is a state along the western coast of India. Its coastline of about is the longest in the country, most of which lies on the Kathiawar peninsula. Gujarat is the fifth-largest Indian state by area, covering some ; and the ninth ...
, India)
* the
Taranaki Basin
The Taranaki Basin is an onshore-offshore Cretaceous rift basin on the West Coast of New Zealand. Development of rifting was the result of extensional stresses during the breakup of Gondwanaland. The basin later underwent fore-arc and intra-arc b ...
in
New Zealand
New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...
* the
Kara Sea
The Kara Sea (russian: Ка́рское мо́ре, ''Karskoye more'') is a marginal sea, separated from the Barents Sea to the west by the Kara Strait and Novaya Zemlya, and from the Laptev Sea to the east by the Severnaya Zemlya archipelago. ...
north of Siberia
* the
Arctic Ocean
The Arctic Ocean is the smallest and shallowest of the world's five major oceans. It spans an area of approximately and is known as the coldest of all the oceans. The International Hydrographic Organization (IHO) recognizes it as an ocean, a ...
off the coasts of
Alaska
Alaska ( ; russian: Аляска, Alyaska; ale, Alax̂sxax̂; ; ems, Alas'kaaq; Yup'ik: ''Alaskaq''; tli, Anáaski) is a state located in the Western United States on the northwest extremity of North America. A semi-exclave of the U.S. ...
and Canada's
Northwest Territories
* the offshore fields in the
Adriatic Sea
The Adriatic Sea () is a body of water separating the Italian Peninsula from the Balkan Peninsula. The Adriatic is the northernmost arm of the Mediterranean Sea, extending from the Strait of Otranto (where it connects to the Ionian Sea) to t ...
Types
Larger lake- and sea-based offshore platforms and
drilling rig
A drilling rig is an integrated system that drills wells, such as oil or water wells, or holes for piling and other construction purposes, into the earth's subsurface. Drilling rigs can be massive structures housing equipment used to drill wa ...
for oil.
![Types_of_offshore_oil_and_gas_structures](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d9/Types_of_offshore_oil_and_gas_structures.jpg)
* 1) & 2) Conventional fixed platforms (deepest: Shell's Bullwinkle in 1991 at 412 m/1,353 ft GOM)
* 3) Compliant tower (deepest: ChevronTexaco's Petronius in 1998 at 534 m /1,754 ft GOM)
* 4) & 5) Vertically moored tension leg and mini-tension leg platform (deepest: ConocoPhillips’ Magnolia in 2004 1,425 m/4,674 ft GOM)
* 6) Spar (deepest: Shell's Perdido in 2010, 2,450 m/8,000 ft GOM)
* 7) & 8) Semi-submersibles (deepest: Shell's NaKika in 2003, 1920 m/6,300 ft GOM)
* 9) Floating production, storage, and offloading facility (deepest: 2005, 1,345 m/4,429 ft Brazil)
* 10) Sub-sea completion and tie-back to host facility (deepest: Shell's Coulomb tie to NaKika 2004, 2,307 m/ 7,570 ft)
: (Numbered from left to right; all records from 2005 data)
Fixed platforms
![Oil Platform Base Construction](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/66/Oil_Platform_Base_Construction.jpg)
These platforms are built on
concrete
Concrete is a composite material composed of fine and coarse aggregate bonded together with a fluid cement (cement paste) that hardens (cures) over time. Concrete is the second-most-used substance in the world after water, and is the most wid ...
or
steel legs, or both, anchored directly onto the seabed, supporting the deck with space for drilling rigs, production facilities and crew quarters. Such platforms are, by virtue of their immobility, designed for very long term use (for instance the
Hibernia platform). Various types of structure are used: steel jacket, concrete
caisson, floating steel, and even
floating concrete. Steel jackets are structural sections made of tubular steel members, and are usually piled into the seabed. To see more details regarding Design, construction and installation of such platforms refer to: and.
Concrete caisson structures, pioneered by the
Condeep
Condeep is a make of gravity-based structure for oil platforms invented and patented by engineer Olav Mo in 1972, which were fabricated by Norwegian Contractors in Stavanger, Norway.Fagerberg; Mowery; Verspagen, p.192 ''Condeep'' is an abbrevia ...
concept, often have in-built oil storage in tanks below the sea surface and these tanks were often used as a flotation capability, allowing them to be built close to shore (
Norwegian
Norwegian, Norwayan, or Norsk may refer to:
*Something of, from, or related to Norway, a country in northwestern Europe
* Norwegians, both a nation and an ethnic group native to Norway
* Demographics of Norway
*The Norwegian language, including ...
fjord
In physical geography, a fjord or fiord () is a long, narrow inlet with steep sides or cliffs, created by a glacier. Fjords exist on the coasts of Alaska, Antarctica, British Columbia, Chile, Denmark, Förden and East Jutland Fjorde, Germany, ...
s and
Scottish firth
Firth is a word in the English and Scots languages used to denote various coastal waters in the United Kingdom, predominantly within Scotland. In the Northern Isles, it more usually refers to a smaller inlet. It is linguistically cognate to ''fj ...
s are popular because they are sheltered and deep enough) and then floated to their final position where they are sunk to the seabed. Fixed platforms are economically feasible for installation in water depths up to about .
Compliant towers
These platforms consist of slender, flexible towers and a pile foundation supporting a conventional deck for drilling and production operations. Compliant towers are designed to sustain significant lateral deflections and forces, and are typically used in water depths ranging from .
Semi-submersible platform
These platforms have hulls (columns and pontoons) of sufficient
buoyancy
Buoyancy (), or upthrust, is an upward force exerted by a fluid that opposes the weight of a partially or fully immersed object. In a column of fluid, pressure increases with depth as a result of the weight of the overlying fluid. Thus the ...
to cause the structure to float, but of weight sufficient to keep the structure upright. Semi-submersible platforms can be moved from place to place and can be ballasted up or down by altering the amount of flooding in buoyancy tanks. They are generally anchored by combinations of chain, wire rope or polyester rope, or both, during drilling and/or production operations, though they can also be kept in place by the use of
dynamic positioning
Dynamic positioning (DP) is a computer-controlled system to automatically maintain a vessel's position and heading by using its own propellers and thrusters. Position reference sensors, combined with wind sensors, motion sensors and gyrocompass ...
. Semi-submersibles can be used in water depths from .
Jack-up drilling rigs
![Jackrigkachbay](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/88/Jackrigkachbay.jpg)
Jack-up Mobile Drilling Units (or jack-ups), as the name suggests, are rigs that can be jacked up above the sea using legs that can be lowered, much like
jacks. These MODUs (Mobile Offshore Drilling Units) are typically used in water depths up to , although some designs can go to depth. They are designed to move from place to place, and then anchor themselves by deploying their legs to the ocean bottom using a
rack and pinion gear system on each leg.
Drillships
A drillship is a maritime vessel that has been fitted with drilling apparatus. It is most often used for exploratory drilling of new oil or gas wells in deep water but can also be used for scientific drilling. Early versions were built on a modified tanker hull, but purpose-built designs are used today. Most drillships are outfitted with a
dynamic positioning
Dynamic positioning (DP) is a computer-controlled system to automatically maintain a vessel's position and heading by using its own propellers and thrusters. Position reference sensors, combined with wind sensors, motion sensors and gyrocompass ...
system to maintain position over the well. They can drill in water depths up to .
Floating production systems
![View of the Port of Las Palmas from the dock of La Esfinge (3)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ea/View_of_the_Port_of_Las_Palmas_from_the_dock_of_La_Esfinge_%283%29.jpg)
The main types of floating production systems are
FPSO (floating production, storage, and offloading system). FPSOs consist of large monohull structures, generally (but not always) shipshaped, equipped with processing facilities. These platforms are moored to a location for extended periods, and do not actually drill for oil or gas. Some variants of these applications, called
FSO (floating storage and offloading system) or FSU (floating storage unit), are used exclusively for storage purposes, and host very little process equipment. This is one of the best sources for having floating production.
The world's first
floating liquefied natural gas (FLNG) facility is in production. See the section on
particularly large examples below.
Tension-leg platform
TLPs are floating platforms tethered to the seabed in a manner that eliminates most vertical movement of the structure. TLPs are used in water depths up to about . The "conventional" TLP is a 4-column design that looks similar to a semisubmersible. Proprietary versions include the Seastar and MOSES mini TLPs; they are relatively low cost, used in water depths between . Mini TLPs can also be used as utility, satellite or early production platforms for larger deepwater discoveries.
Gravity-based structure
A GBS can either be steel or concrete and is usually anchored directly onto the seabed. Steel GBS are predominantly used when there is no or limited availability of crane barges to install a conventional fixed offshore platform, for example in the Caspian Sea. There are several steel GBS's in the world today (e.g. offshore Turkmenistan Waters (Caspian Sea) and offshore New Zealand). Steel GBS do not usually provide
hydrocarbon
In organic chemistry, a hydrocarbon is an organic compound consisting entirely of hydrogen and carbon. Hydrocarbons are examples of group 14 hydrides. Hydrocarbons are generally colourless and hydrophobic, and their odors are usually weak or ...
storage capability. It is mainly installed by pulling it off the yard, by either wet-tow or/and dry-tow, and self-installing by controlled ballasting of the compartments with sea water. To position the GBS during installation, the GBS may be connected to either a transportation barge or any other barge (provided it is large enough to support the GBS) using strand jacks. The jacks shall be released gradually whilst the GBS is ballasted to ensure that the GBS does not sway too much from target location.
Spar platforms
![Devils tower 2004](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bb/Devils_tower_2004.JPG)
Spars are moored to the seabed like TLPs, but whereas a TLP has vertical tension tethers, a spar has more conventional mooring lines. Spars have to-date been designed in three configurations: the "conventional" one-piece cylindrical hull; the "truss spar", in which the midsection is composed of truss elements connecting the upper buoyant hull (called a hard tank) with the bottom soft tank containing permanent ballast; and the "cell spar", which is built from multiple vertical cylinders. The spar has more inherent stability than a TLP since it has a large counterweight at the bottom and does not depend on the mooring to hold it upright. It also has the ability, by adjusting the mooring line tensions (using chain-jacks attached to the mooring lines), to move horizontally and to position itself over wells at some distance from the main platform location. The first production spar was
Kerr-McGee's Neptune, anchored in in the Gulf of Mexico; however, spars (such as
Brent Spar
Brent Spar, or Brent E, was a North Sea oil storage and tanker loading buoy in the Brent oilfield, operated by Shell UK. With the completion of a pipeline connection to the oil terminal at Sullom Voe in Shetland, the storage facility had cont ...
) were previously used as FSOs.
Eni's
Devil's Tower
Devils Tower (also known as Bear Lodge Butte) is a butte, possibly laccolithic, composed of igneous rock in the Bear Lodge Ranger District of the Black Hills, near Hulett and Sundance in Crook County, northeastern Wyoming, above the Belle Fo ...
located in of water in the Gulf of Mexico, was the world's deepest spar until 2010. The world's deepest platform as of 2011 was the
Perdido spar in the Gulf of Mexico, floating in 2,438 metres of water. It is operated by
Royal Dutch Shell
Shell plc is a British multinational oil and gas company headquartered in London, England. Shell is a public limited company with a primary listing on the London Stock Exchange (LSE) and secondary listings on Euronext Amsterdam and the New Yo ...
and was built at a cost of $3 billion.
[
The first truss spars were Kerr-McGee's Boomvang and Nansen.
The first (and, as of 2010, only) cell spar is Kerr-McGee's Red Hawk.
]
Normally unmanned installations (NUI)
These installations, sometimes called toadstools, are small platforms, consisting of little more than a well bay
A well bay is an area of an oil platform where the Christmas trees and wellheads are located. It normally consists of two levels, a lower where the wellheads are accessed and an upper where the Xmas Trees are accessed often along with the various ...
, helipad and emergency shelter. They are designed to be operated remotely under normal conditions, only to be visited occasionally for routine maintenance or well work
A well intervention, or well work, is any operation carried out on an oil or gas well during, or at the end of, its productive life that alters the state of the well or well geometry, provides well diagnostics, or manages the production of the wel ...
.
Conductor support systems
These installations, also known as satellite platforms, are small unmanned platforms consisting of little more than a well bay
A well bay is an area of an oil platform where the Christmas trees and wellheads are located. It normally consists of two levels, a lower where the wellheads are accessed and an upper where the Xmas Trees are accessed often along with the various ...
and a small process plant
An oil production plant is a facility which processes production fluids from oil wells in order to separate out key components and prepare them for export. Typical oil well production fluids are a mixture of oil, gas and produced water. An oil pr ...
. They are designed to operate in conjunction with a static production platform which is connected to the platform by flow lines or by umbilical cable
An umbilical cable or umbilical is a cable and/or hose that supplies required consumables to an apparatus, like a rocket, or to a person, such as a diver or astronaut. It is named by analogy with an umbilical cord. An umbilical can, for example, ...
, or both.
Particularly large examples
The Petronius Platform
Petronius is a deepwater compliant tower oil platform built from 1997 to 2000 and operated by Chevron in the Gulf of Mexico, 210 km southeast of New Orleans, United States.
A compliant piled tower design, it is 640 metres (2,100 ft) hi ...
is a compliant tower in the Gulf of Mexico
The Gulf of Mexico ( es, Golfo de México) is an 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 the United ...
modeled after the Hess Baldpate platform, which stands above the ocean floor. It is one of the world's tallest structures
The world's tallest human-made structure is the Burj Khalifa in Dubai (of the United Arab Emirates). The building gained the official title of "tallest building in the world" and the tallest self-supported structure at its opening on January ...
.
The Hibernia
''Hibernia'' () is the Classical Latin name for Ireland. The name ''Hibernia'' was taken from Greek geographical accounts. During his exploration of northwest Europe (c. 320 BC), Pytheas of Massalia called the island ''Iérnē'' (written ). ...
platform in Canada
Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...
is the world's heaviest offshore platform, located on the Jeanne D'Arc Basin
The Jeanne d'Arc Basin is an offshore sedimentary basin located about 340 kilometres (~210 miles) to the basin centre, east-southeast of St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador. This basin formed in response to the large scale plate tectonic fo ...
, in the Atlantic Ocean
The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's five oceans, with an area of about . It covers approximately 20% of Earth's surface and about 29% of its water surface area. It is known to separate the " Old World" of Africa, Europe ...
off the coast of Newfoundland. This ''gravity base structure
A gravity-based structure (GBS) is a support structure held in place by gravity, most notably offshore oil platforms. These structures are often constructed in fjords due to their protected area and sufficient depth.
Offshore oil platforms
Pri ...
'' (GBS), which sits on the ocean floor, is high and has storage capacity for of crude oil in its high caisson. The platform acts as a small concrete island with serrated outer edges designed to withstand the impact of an iceberg. The GBS contains production storage tanks and the remainder of the void space is filled with ballast with the entire structure weighing in at 1.2 million ton
Ton is the name of any one of several units of measure. It has a long history and has acquired several meanings and uses.
Mainly it describes units of weight. Confusion can arise because ''ton'' can mean
* the long ton, which is 2,240 pounds
...
s.
Royal Dutch Shell
Shell plc is a British multinational oil and gas company headquartered in London, England. Shell is a public limited company with a primary listing on the London Stock Exchange (LSE) and secondary listings on Euronext Amsterdam and the New Yo ...
has developed the first Floating Liquefied Natural Gas (FLNG) facility, which is situated approximately 200 km off the coast of Western Australia
Western Australia (commonly abbreviated as WA) is a state of Australia occupying the western percent of the land area of Australia excluding external territories. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Southern Ocean to th ...
. It is the largest floating offshore facility. It is approximately 488m long and 74m wide with displacement
Displacement may refer to:
Physical sciences
Mathematics and Physics
* Displacement (geometry), is the difference between the final and initial position of a point trajectory (for instance, the center of mass of a moving object). The actual path ...
of around 600,000t when fully ballasted.
Maintenance and supply
A typical oil production platform is self-sufficient in energy and water needs, housing electrical generation, water desalinators and all of the equipment necessary to process oil and gas such that it can be either delivered directly onshore by pipeline or to a floating platform or tanker loading facility, or both. Elements in the oil/gas production process include wellhead
A wellhead is the component at the surface of an oil or gas well that provides the structural and pressure-containing interface for the drilling and production equipment.
The primary purpose of a wellhead is to provide the suspension point and ...
, production manifold
Production may refer to:
Economics and business
* Production (economics)
* Production, the act of manufacturing goods
* Production, in the outline of industrial organization, the act of making products (goods and services)
* Production as a stati ...
, production separator
The term separator in oilfield terminology designates a pressure vessel used for separating well fluids produced from oil and gas wells into gaseous and liquid components. A separator for petroleum production is a large vessel designed to separate ...
, glycol
A diol is a chemical compound containing two hydroxyl groups ( groups). An aliphatic diol is also called a glycol. This pairing of functional groups is pervasive, and many subcategories have been identified.
The most common industrial diol is e ...
process to dry gas, gas compressor
A compressor is a mechanical device that increases the pressure of a gas by reducing its volume. An air compressor is a specific type of gas compressor.
Compressors are similar to pumps: both increase the pressure on a fluid and both can tran ...
s, water injection pumps, oil/gas export metering and main oil line
Main may refer to:
Geography
*Main River (disambiguation)
**Most commonly the Main (river) in Germany
*Main, Iran, a village in Fars Province
*"Spanish Main", the Caribbean coasts of mainland Spanish territories in the 16th and 17th centuries
*' ...
pumps.
Larger platforms are assisted by smaller ESVs (emergency support vessels) like the British
British may refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies.
** Britishness, the British identity and common culture
* British English, ...
Iolair
''Iolair'' ( Gaelic for eagle) is a specialised semi-submersible offshore platform designed for BP to support and service oil platforms in the North Sea and served as an emergency support vessel (ESV) in the Forties Oil Field. Since 2000 i ...
that are summoned when something has gone wrong, ''e.g.'' when a search and rescue operation is required. During normal operations, PSVs (platform supply vessels) keep the platforms provisioned and supplied, and AHTS vessels can also supply them, as well as tow them to location and serve as standby rescue and firefighting vessels.
Crew
Essential personnel
Not all of the following personnel are present on every platform. On smaller platforms, one worker can perform a number of different jobs. The following also are not names officially recognized in the industry:
*OIM (offshore installation manager) The Offshore Installation Manager (OIM) is the most senior manager of an offshore platform operating on the UKCS.
Many offshore operators have adopted this UK offshore management model and title and applied it to their operations in all global reg ...
who is the ultimate authority during his/her shift and makes the essential decisions regarding the operation of the platform;
*operations team leader (OTL);
*Offshore Methods Engineer (OME) who defines the installation methodology of the platform;
*offshore operations engineer (OOE) who is the senior technical authority on the platform;
*PSTL or operations coordinator for managing crew changes;
*dynamic positioning operator, navigation, ship or vessel maneuvering (MODU), station keeping, fire and gas systems operations in the event of incident;
*automation systems specialist, to configure, maintain and troubleshoot the process control systems (PCS), process safety systems, emergency support systems and vessel management systems;
*second mate to meet manning requirements of flag state, operates fast rescue craft, cargo operations, fire team leader;
*third mate to meet manning requirements of flag state, operate fast rescue craft, cargo operations, fire team leader;
*ballast control operator to operate fire and gas systems;
*crane operators to operate the cranes for lifting cargo around the platform and between boats;
*scaffolders to rig up scaffolding for when it is required for workers to work at height;
*coxswains to maintain the lifeboats and manning them if necessary;
*control room operators, especially FPSO or production platforms;
*catering crew, including people tasked with performing essential functions such as cooking, laundry and cleaning the accommodation;
*production techs to run the production plant;
*helicopter
A helicopter is a type of rotorcraft in which lift and thrust are supplied by horizontally spinning rotors. This allows the helicopter to take off and land vertically, to hover, and to fly forward, backward and laterally. These attributes ...
pilot
An aircraft pilot or aviator is a person who controls the flight of an aircraft by operating its directional flight controls. Some other aircrew members, such as navigators or flight engineers, are also considered aviators, because they a ...
(s) living on some platforms that have a helicopter based offshore and transporting workers to other platforms or to shore on crew changes;
*maintenance technicians (instrument, electrical or mechanical).
*Fully qualified medic.
*Radio operator to operate all radio communications.
*Store Keeper, keeping the inventory well supplied
*Technician to record the fluid levels in tanks
Incidental personnel
Drill crew will be on board if the installation is performing drilling operations. A drill crew will normally comprise:
* Toolpusher
A tool pusher (sometimes toolpusher or just pusher or even, when spoken of in the third person, The Push) is an occupation within the oil drilling industry.
On a land drilling rig the tool pusher may be rig manager and responsible for all operat ...
* Driller
* Roughneck
Roughneck is a term for a person whose occupation is hard manual labor. The term applies across a number of industries, but is most commonly associated with the workers on a drilling rig. The ideal of the hard-working, tough roughneck has been ...
s
* Roustabout
Roustabout (Australia/New Zealand English: rouseabout) is an occupational term. Traditionally, it referred to a worker with broad-based, non-specific skills. In particular, it was used to describe show or circus workers who handled materials ...
s
* Company man
A company man in the petroleum industry refers to a representative of an operating/exploration company. Other terms that may be used are company representative, foreman, drill site supervisor (DSV), company consultant, rigsite leader or "well sit ...
* Mud engineer
A mud engineer (correctly called a drilling fluids engineer, but most often referred to as the "mud man") works on an oil well or gas well drilling rig, and is responsible for ensuring the properties of the drilling fluid, also known as drilling mu ...
* Motorman See: Glossary of oilfield jargon
Oilfield terminology refers to the jargon used by those working in fields within and related to the upstream segment of the petroleum industry. It includes words and phrases describing professions, equipment, and procedures specific to the indust ...
* Derrickhand
A derrickhand or derrickman is the person who sits atop the derrick on a drilling rig. Though the exact duties vary from rig to rig, they almost always report directly to the driller. Their job is to guide the stands of the drill pipe into the fin ...
* Geologist
A geologist is a scientist who studies the solid, liquid, and gaseous matter that constitutes Earth and other terrestrial planets, as well as the processes that shape them. Geologists usually study geology, earth science, or geophysics, althoug ...
* Welders
In a broad sense, a welder is anyone, amateur or professional, who uses welding equipment, perhaps especially one who uses such equipment fairly often. In a narrower sense, a welder is a tradesperson who specializes in fusing materials together ...
and Welder Helpers
Well services Well services is a department within a petroleum production company through which matters concerning existing wells are handled. Having a shared well services department for all (or at least multiple) assets operated by a company is seen as advan ...
crew will be on board for well work
A well intervention, or well work, is any operation carried out on an oil or gas well during, or at the end of, its productive life that alters the state of the well or well geometry, provides well diagnostics, or manages the production of the wel ...
. The crew will normally comprise:
* Well services supervisor
* Wireline or coiled tubing
In the oil and gas industries, coiled tubing refers to a very long metal pipe, normally in diameter which is supplied spooled on a large reel. It is used for interventions in oil and gas wells and sometimes as production tubing in depleted ...
operators
* Pump operator
* Pump hanger and ranger
Drawbacks
Risks
The nature of their operation—extraction of volatile substances sometimes under extreme pressure in a hostile environment—means risk; accidents and tragedies occur regularly. The U.S. Minerals Management Service
The Minerals Management Service (MMS) was an agency of the United States Department of the Interior that managed the nation's natural gas, oil and other mineral resources on the outer continental shelf (OCS).
Due to perceived conflict of inter ...
reported 69 offshore deaths, 1,349 injuries, and 858 fires and explosions on offshore rigs in the Gulf of Mexico from 2001 to 2010. On July 6, 1988, 167 people died when Occidental Petroleum's Piper Alpha
Piper Alpha was an oil platform located in the North Sea approximately north-east of Aberdeen, Scotland. It was operated by Occidental Petroleum (Caledonia) Limited (OPCAL) and began production in 1976, initially as an oil-only platform but la ...
offshore production platform, on the Piper field in the UK sector of the North Sea
The North Sea lies between Great Britain, Norway, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium. An epeiric sea, epeiric sea on the European continental shelf, it connects to the Atlantic Ocean through the English Channel in the south and the ...
, exploded after a gas leak. The resulting investigation conducted by Lord Cullen and publicized in the first Cullen Report
The Cullen Report can refer to one of three reports of public inquiries into UK disasters that were overseen by William Cullen, Baron Cullen of Whitekirk.
Piper Alpha
The first Cullen Report was prompted by Occidental Petroleum's Piper Alpha ...
was highly critical of a number of areas, including, but not limited to, management within the company, the design of the structure, and the Permit to Work System. The report was commissioned in 1988, and was delivered in November 1990. The accident greatly accelerated the practice of providing living accommodations on separate platforms, away from those used for extraction.
The offshore can be in itself a hazardous environment. In March 1980, the 'flotel
Flotel, a portmanteau of the terms floating hotel, is the installation of living quarters on top of rafts or semi-submersible platforms. Flotels are used as hotels on rivers or in harbour areas, or as dwelling for working people, especially in the ...
' (floating hotel) platform '' Alexander L. Kielland'' capsized in a storm in the North Sea
The North Sea lies between Great Britain, Norway, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium. An epeiric sea, epeiric sea on the European continental shelf, it connects to the Atlantic Ocean through the English Channel in the south and the ...
with the loss of 123 lives.
In 2001, ''Petrobras 36
''Petrobras 36'' (''P-36'') was at the time the largest floating semi-submersible oil platform in the world prior to its sinking on 20 March 2001. It was owned by Petrobras, a semi-public Brazilian oil company headquartered in Rio de Janeiro. The c ...
'' in Brazil
Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...
exploded and sank five days later, killing 11 people.
Given the number of grievances and conspiracy theories that involve the oil business, and the importance of gas/oil platforms to the economy, platforms in the United States are believed to be potential terrorist targets. Agencies and military units responsible for maritime counter-terrorism in the US (Coast Guard
A coast guard or coastguard is a maritime security organization of a particular country. The term embraces wide range of responsibilities in different countries, from being a heavily armed military force with customs and security duties to ...
, Navy SEALs
The United States Navy Sea, Air, and Land (SEAL) Teams, commonly known as Navy SEALs, are the U.S. Navy's primary special operations force and a component of the Naval Special Warfare Command. Among the SEALs' main functions are conducting sm ...
, Marine Recon) often train for platform raids.
On April 21, 2010, the ''Deepwater Horizon
''Deepwater Horizon'' was an ultra-deepwater, dynamically positioned, semi-submersible offshore drilling rig owned by Transocean and operated by BP. On 20 April 2010, while drilling at the Macondo Prospect, a blowout caused an explosion ...
'' platform, 52 miles off-shore of Venice, Louisiana
Venice is an unincorporated community and census-designated place in Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana, United States. As of the 2020 census, its population was 162. It is south of New Orleans on the west bank of the Mississippi River at . It is t ...
, (property of Transocean
Transocean Ltd. is an American company. It is the world's largest offshore drilling contractor based on revenue and is based in Vernier, Switzerland. The company has offices in 20 countries, including Canada, the United States, Norway, Unite ...
and leased to BP) exploded, killing 11 people, and sank two days later. The resulting undersea gusher, conservatively estimated to exceed as of early June 2010, became the worst oil spill in US history, eclipsing the Exxon Valdez oil spill.
Ecological effects
In British waters, the cost of removing all platform rig structures entirely was estimated in 2013 at £30 billion.
Aquatic organisms invariably attach themselves to the undersea portions of oil platforms, turning them into artificial reefs. In the Gulf of Mexico and offshore California, the waters around oil platforms are popular destinations for sports and commercial fishermen, because of the greater numbers of fish near the platforms. The 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 territori ...
and Brunei
Brunei ( , ), formally Brunei Darussalam ( ms, Negara Brunei Darussalam, Jawi: , ), is a country located on the north coast of the island of Borneo in Southeast Asia. Apart from its South China Sea coast, it is completely surrounded by t ...
have active Rigs-to-Reefs
Rigs-to-Reefs (RTR) is the practice of converting decommissioned offshore oil and petroleum rigs into artificial reefs. Such biotic reefs have been created from oil rigs in the United States, Brunei and Malaysia.Brian TwomeyArtificial Reefs C ...
programs, in which former oil platforms are left in the sea, either in place or towed to new locations, as permanent artificial reefs. In the US Gulf of Mexico
The Gulf of Mexico ( es, Golfo de México) is an 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 the United ...
, as of September 2012, 420 former oil platforms, about 10 percent of decommissioned platforms, have been converted to permanent reefs.
On the US Pacific coast, marine biologist
Marine biology is the scientific study of the biology of marine life, organisms in the sea. Given that in biology many phyla, families and genera have some species that live in the sea and others that live on land, marine biology classifi ...
Milton Love has proposed that oil platforms off California be retained as artificial reef
An artificial reef is a human-created underwater structure, typically built to promote marine life in areas with a generally featureless bottom, to control erosion, block ship passage, block the use of trawling nets, or improve surfing.
Many ...
s, instead of being dismantled (at great cost), because he has found them to be havens for many of the species of fish which are otherwise declining in the region, in the course of 11 years of research. Love is funded mainly by government agencies, but also in small part by the California Artificial Reef Enhancement Program
California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...
. Divers
Diver or divers may refer to:
*Diving (sport), the sport of performing acrobatics while jumping or falling into water
*Practitioner of underwater diving, including:
**scuba diving,
**freediving,
**surface-supplied diving,
**saturation diving, a ...
have been used to assess the fish
Fish are aquatic, craniate, gill-bearing animals that lack limbs with digits. Included in this definition are the living hagfish, lampreys, and cartilaginous and bony fish as well as various extinct related groups. Approximately 95% of ...
populations surrounding the platforms.
Effects on the environment
Offshore oil production involves environmental risks, most notably oil spills from oil tankers or pipelines transporting oil from the platform to onshore facilities, and from leaks and accidents on the platform. Produced water
Produced water is a term used in the oil industry or geothermal industry to describe water that is produced as a byproduct during the extraction of oil and natural gas, or used as a medium for heat extraction. Produced water is the kind of brackis ...
is also generated, which is water brought to the surface along with the oil and gas; it is usually highly saline and may include dissolved or unseparated hydrocarbons.
Offshore rigs are shut down during hurricanes. In the Gulf of Mexico hurricanes are increasing because of the increasing number of oil platforms that heat surrounding air with methane, it is estimated that U.S. Gulf of Mexico, oil and gas facilities emit approximately 500000 tons of methane
Methane ( , ) is a chemical compound with the chemical formula (one carbon atom bonded to four hydrogen atoms). It is a group-14 hydride, the simplest alkane, and the main constituent of natural gas. The relative abundance of methane on Ea ...
each year, corresponding to a loss of produced gas of 2.9 percent. The increasing number of oil rigs also increase movement of oil tankers which also increases levels which directly warm water in the zone, warm waters are a key factor for hurricanes to form.
To reduce the amount of carbon emissions otherwise released into the atmosphere, methane pyrolysis
The pyrolysis (or devolatilization) process is the thermal decomposition of materials at elevated temperatures, often in an inert atmosphere. It involves a change of chemical composition. The word is coined from the Greek-derived elements ''pyr ...
of natural gas pumped up by oil platforms is a possible alternative to flaring for consideration. Methane pyrolysis produces non-polluting hydrogen
Hydrogen is the chemical element with the symbol H and atomic number 1. Hydrogen is the lightest element. At standard conditions hydrogen is a gas of diatomic molecules having the formula . It is colorless, odorless, tasteless, non-toxic ...
in high volume from this natural gas at low cost. This process operates at around 1000 °C and removes carbon in a solid form from the methane, producing hydrogen. The carbon can then be pumped underground and is not released into the atmosphere.
It is being evaluated in such research laboratories as Karlsruhe Liquid-metal Laboratory (KALLA). and the chemical engineering team at University of California – Santa Barbara
Repurposing
If not decommissioned, old platform
Platform may refer to:
Technology
* Computing platform, a framework on which applications may be run
* Platform game, a genre of video games
* Car platform, a set of components shared by several vehicle models
* Weapons platform, a system or ...
s can be repurposed to pump into rocks below the seabed. Others have been converted to launch rockets into space, and more are being redesigned for use with heavy-lift launch vehicles.
Challenges
Offshore oil and gas production is more challenging than land-based installations due to the remote and harsher environment. Much of the innovation in the offshore petroleum sector concerns overcoming these challenges, including the need to provide very large production facilities. Production and drilling facilities may be very large and a large investment, such as the Troll A platform
The Troll A platform is a Condeep gravity-based structure offshore natural gas platform in the Troll gas field off the west coast of Norway. Built from reinforced concrete, , it was the tallest structure that has ever been moved to another posit ...
standing on a depth of 300 meters.
Another type of offshore platform may float with a mooring system to maintain it on location. While a floating system may be lower cost in deeper waters than a fixed platform, the dynamic nature of the platforms introduces many challenges for the drilling and production facilities.
The ocean can add several thousand meters or more to the fluid column
In physics, a fluid is a liquid, gas, or other material that continuously deforms (''flows'') under an applied shear stress, or external force. They have zero shear modulus, or, in simpler terms, are substances which cannot resist any shear ...
. The addition increases the equivalent circulating density and downhole pressures in drilling wells, as well as the energy needed to lift produced fluids for separation on the platform.
The trend today is to conduct more of the production operations subsea
Subsea technology involves fully submerged ocean equipment, operations, or applications, especially when some distance offshore, in deep ocean waters, or on the seabed. The term ''subsea'' is frequently used in connection with oceanography, marin ...
, by separating water from oil and re-injecting it rather than pumping it up to a platform, or by flowing to onshore, with no installations visible above the sea. Subsea installations help to exploit resources at progressively deeper waters—locations that had been inaccessible—and overcome challenges posed by sea ice such as in the Barents Sea
The Barents Sea ( , also ; no, Barentshavet, ; russian: Баренцево море, Barentsevo More) is a marginal sea of the Arctic Ocean, located off the northern coasts of Norway and Russia and divided between Norwegian and Russian territo ...
. One such challenge in shallower environments is seabed gouging by drifting ice features (means of protecting offshore installations against ice action includes burial in the seabed).
Offshore manned facilities also present logistics and human resources challenges. An offshore oil platform is a small community in itself with cafeteria, sleeping quarters, management and other support functions. In the North Sea, staff members are transported by helicopter for a two-week shift. They usually receive higher salaries than onshore workers do. Supplies and waste are transported by ship, and the supply deliveries need to be carefully planned because storage space on the platform is limited. Today, much effort goes into relocating as many of the personnel as possible onshore, where management and technical experts are in touch with the platform by video conferencing. An onshore job is also more attractive for the aging workforce in the petroleum industry
The petroleum industry, also known as the oil industry or the oil patch, includes the global processes of exploration, extraction, refining, transportation (often by oil tankers and pipelines), and marketing of petroleum products. The large ...
, at least in the western world. These efforts among others are contained in the established term integrated operations In the Petroleum industry, Integrated operations (IO) refers to the integration of people, disciplines, organizations, work processes and information and communication technology to make smarter decisions. In short, IO is collaboration with focus o ...
. The increased use of subsea facilities helps achieve the objective of keeping more workers onshore. Subsea facilities are also easier to expand, with new separators or different modules for different oil types, and are not limited by the fixed floor space of an above-water installation.
Deepest platforms
The world's deepest oil platform is the floating Perdido, which is a spar platform in the Gulf of Mexico in a water depth of .
Non-floating compliant towers and fixed platforms, by water depth:
* Petronius Platform
Petronius is a deepwater compliant tower oil platform built from 1997 to 2000 and operated by Chevron in the Gulf of Mexico, 210 km southeast of New Orleans, United States.
A compliant piled tower design, it is 640 metres (2,100 ft) hi ...
,
* Baldpate Platform
Baldpate is a offshore compliant tower oil platform near the coast of Louisiana, owned and operated by Hess Corporation. It was the first freestanding compliant tower to be built following the Lena platform which was a guyed compliant tower. It ...
,
* Troll A Platform
The Troll A platform is a Condeep gravity-based structure offshore natural gas platform in the Troll gas field off the west coast of Norway. Built from reinforced concrete, , it was the tallest structure that has ever been moved to another posit ...
,
* Bullwinkle Platform
Bullwinkle was a tall, pile-supported fixed steel oil platform in the Gulf of Mexico. Installed in 1988, the total weight of the platform was 77,000 tons, of which the steel jacket comprises 49,375 tones. At the time of its construction it was th ...
,
* Pompano Platform,
* Benguela-Belize Lobito-Tomboco Platform
Benguela-Belize Lobito-Tomboco is a offshore compliant tower oil platform off the coast of Angola
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,
* Gullfaks C Platform,
* Tombua Landana Platform,
* Harmony Platform
In music, harmony is the process by which individual sounds are joined together or composed into whole units or compositions. Often, the term harmony refers to simultaneously occurring frequencies, pitches ( tones, notes), or chords. However ...
,
See also
* List of tallest oil platforms
This is a list of the tallest oil platforms over in height. The current highest oil platform is the Petronius platform operated by Chevron Corporation and Marathon Oil in the Gulf of Mexico, 210 km southeast of New Orleans, United States.
...
* Accommodation platform
An accommodation platform is an offshore platform which supports living quarters for offshore personnel. These are often associated with the petroleum industry, although other industries use them as well, such as the wind farm Horns Rev 2.
* Chukchi Cap
Chukchi may refer to:
*Chukchi people
* Chukchi language
*Chukchi Peninsula
* Chukchi Sea
See also
*Chukotka (disambiguation)
*Chukotsky (disambiguation)
Chukotsky (чуко́тский, '' hukótskiy'', masculine), Chukotskaya (чуко́тск ...
* Conductor support system
On offshore oil platforms, conductor support systems, also known as conductor supported systems or satellite platforms, are small unmanned installations consisting of little more than a well bay, and a small process plant. They are designed to op ...
* Deep sea mining
Deep sea mining is a growing subfield of experimental seabed mining that involves the retrieval of minerals and deposits from the ocean floor found at depths of or greater. As of 2021, the majority of marine mining efforts are limited to shal ...
* Deepwater drilling
Deepwater drilling, or deep well drilling, is the process of creating holes in the Earth's crust using a drilling rig for oil extraction under the deep sea. There are approximately 3400 deepwater wells in the Gulf of Mexico with depths greater ...
* Drillship
A drillship is a merchant vessel designed for use in exploratory offshore drilling of new oil and gas wells or for scientific drilling purposes. In recent years the vessels have been used in deepwater and ultra-deepwater applications, equipped ...
* North Sea oil
North Sea oil is a mixture of hydrocarbons, comprising liquid petroleum and natural gas, produced from petroleum reservoirs beneath the North Sea.
In the petroleum industry, the term "North Sea" often includes areas such as the Norwegian Sea ...
* Offshore geotechnical engineering
Offshore geotechnical engineering is a sub-field of geotechnical engineering. It is concerned with foundation design, construction, maintenance and decommissioning for human-made structures in the sea.Dean, p. 1 Oil platforms, artificial island ...
* Offshore oil and gas in the United States
Offshore oil and gas in the United States provides a large portion of the nation’s oil and gas supply. Large oil and gas reservoirs are found under the sea offshore from Louisiana, Texas, California, and Alaska. Environmental concerns have p ...
* Oil drilling
An oil well is a drillhole boring in Earth that is designed to bring petroleum oil hydrocarbons to the surface. Usually some natural gas is released as associated petroleum gas along with the oil. A well that is designed to produce only gas may ...
* Protocol for the Suppression of Unlawful Acts against the Safety of Fixed Platforms Located on the Continental Shelf
* SAR201
Saudi Aramco Rig 201 is offshore rig owned and managed by Saudi Aramco. This jackup type rig is located in the Persian Gulf.
This rig was built in 1982 in Singapore and has a max drill depth of 20,000 Feet.
References
Oil platforms
Saud ...
* Shallow water drilling
* Submarine pipeline
A submarine pipeline (also known as marine, subsea or offshore pipeline) is a pipeline that is laid on the seabed or below it inside a trench.Dean, p. 338-340Gerwick, p. 583-585 In some cases, the pipeline is mostly on-land but in places it cross ...
* TEMPSC
TEMPSC is an acronym for "Totally Enclosed Motor Propelled Survival Craft", which was originally designed for offshore oil and gas platforms in 1968. The first-ever TEMPSC was spherical in shape, had a flat bottom, a single hook, with a total pass ...
* Texas Towers
The Texas Towers were a set of three radar facilities off the eastern seaboard of the United States which were used for surveillance by the United States Air Force during the Cold War. Modeled on the offshore oil drilling platforms first employ ...
References
External links
Oil Rig Disasters
Listing of oil rig accidents
Oil Rig Photos
Collection of pictures of drilling rigs and production platforms
Overview of Conventional Platforms
Pictorial treatment on the installation of platforms which extend from the seabed to the ocean surface
{{DEFAULTSORT:Oil Platform
Offshore engineering
Petroleum production
Drilling technology
Natural gas technology
Structural engineering