What do gigantic oil platforms do

But while the BP accident has set back efforts to open more U. You want to find oil, you have to go to where it is. But first, it has to be extracted; the oil pools are miles out in the Atlantic and more than four miles down, under freezing seas, rock, and a heavy salt cap. Skip to header Skip to main content Skip to footer In-depth briefing. Eastern Europe's vaccine hesitancy problem. Daily briefing. Top aid official says thousands of Afghan refugees are entering Iran every day.

Most Popular. These rigs float and can be attached to the ocean bottom using traditional mooring and anchoring systems or they maintain their position by using thrusters to counteract winds, waves and currents. Each drilling systems is designed to withstand the wide range of wind and wave forces, including severe winter storms and hurricanes.

Following is a description of 7 most common types of platforms. A Fixed Platform FP consists of a jacket a tall vertical section made of tubular steel members supported by piles driven into the seabed with a deck placed on top, providing space for crew quarters, a drilling rig, and production facilities. The fixed platform is economically feasible for installation in water depths up to 1, feet meters.

A Compliant Tower CT consists of a narrow, flexible tower and a piled foundation that can support a conventional deck for drilling and production operations. Unlike the fixed platform, the compliant tower withstands large lateral forces by sustaining significant lateral deflections, and is usually used in water depths between 1, and 2, feet and meters. A Mini-Tension Leg Platform Mini-TLP or Sea Star SStar is a floating mini-tension leg platform of relatively low cost developed for production of smaller deep water reserves which would be uneconomic to produce using more conventional deep water production systems.

However, the base of the structure is immense just like how an iceberg is small at the tip and humongous under water.

Known as the biggest drilling oil platform in the world, the Berkut platform is a gigantic ice-resistant structure in the Okhotsk Sea in Russia. Berkut oil rig is part of the Sakhalin-1 development in the Arkutun-Dagi reservoir. Being subjected to harsh sub-Arctic environmental conditions, the Berkut platform can resist temperatures as low as negative 28 degrees Celsius and ice field surround it by almost two meters during the winter season.

Berkut's overall weight exceeds , ton and is considered to be the heaviest integrated topside that ever floated. The massive gravity base structure is also the first in the world to adapt an earthquake protection system that can withstand seismic excitations of magnitude 9 without violating operational protocols. Ice linings have also been installed to give additional protection against ice formations.

The Berkut oil platform is capable of drilling 45 wells and produces 12, tons of oil per day and 4. Berkut's concrete base consists of large tanks where oil can be stored which can also control the buoyancy of the whole structure. As the name suggests, the Berkut structure is held firmly in place by gravity.

For such a gigantic structure to be kept in place just by gravity, the Berkut platform is truly an engineering marvel of the sea.

The Perdido oil platform is the world's second deepest oil and gas production hub and began commercial production in from a new geological territory in the US Gulf of Mexico. Perdido is a spar type of floating platform which uses a large-diameter, single vertical cylinder that is weighted at the bottom by a cell filled with material that is much denser than water to lower the center of gravity of the platform and offer stability.

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