An oil platform is a large structure with facilities to extract and process petroleum and natural gas that lie in rock formations beneath the seabed. Many oil platforms will also have facilities to accommodate the workers, although it is also common to have a separate accommodation platform linked by bridge 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 to the ocean floor, consist of an artificial island, or float. In some arrangements the main facility may have storage facilities for the processed oil. Remote subsea wells may also be connected to a platform by flow lines and by umbilical connections. These sub-sea facilities may include one or more subsea wells or manifold centres for multiple wells.
A semi-submersible platform is a specialised marine vessel used in offshore roles including as offshore drilling rigs, safety vessels, oil production platforms, and heavy lift cranes. They have good ship stability and seakeeping, better than drillships.
Anchor Handling Tug Supply (AHTS) vessels are mainly built to handle anchors for oil rigs, tow them to location, and use them to secure the rigs in place. AHTS vessels sometimes also serve as Emergency Response and Rescue Vessels (ERRVs) and as supply transports.
A diving support vessel is a ship that is used as a floating base for professional diving projects. Basic requirements are the ability to keep station accurately and reliably throughout a diving operation, often in close proximity to drilling or production platforms, for positioning to degrade slowly enough in deteriorating conditions to recover divers without excessive risk, and to carry the necessary support equipment for the mode of diving to be used.
The Saipem 7000 is the world's third largest semi-submersible crane vessel, after the SSCV Sleipnir and the SSCV Thialf. It is owned by the oil and gas industry contractor Saipem S.p.A.
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 with the latest and most advanced dynamic positioning systems.
The SSCV Thialf is a huge semi-submersible crane vessel operated by Heerema Marine Contractors, and it was the largest crane vessel in the world until the SSCV Sleipnir became the largest in 2019.
Ulstein Group is a group of companies that focus on various marine-related industries, but is mainly known for its shipbuilding and ship design activities. The largest unit is Ulstein Verft AS. The company's head office and primary operations are located in the town of Ulsteinvik in the municipality of Ulstein in Møre og Romsdal county, Norway, an important area for the Norwegian maritime cluster, and with subsidiaries in several other countries. The group also includes companies working with power & control systems and solutions, engineering, site follow-up and aftermarket services. The company has also been engaged in shipping.
A crane vessel, crane ship, crane barge, or floating crane is a ship with a crane specialized in lifting heavy loads, typically exceeding 1,500 t for modern ships. The largest crane vessels are used for offshore construction.
Pioneering Spirit is a catamaran crane vessel owned by the Switzerland-based Allseas Group designed for the single-lift installation and removal of large oil and gas platforms and the installation of record-weight pipelines. The 382-metre-long (1,253 ft), 124-metre-wide (407 ft) vessel is the world's largest vessel by gross tonnage, and since September 2021 also the largest floating sheerleg in the world. It was built in South Korea by Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering in 2013 at a cost of €2.6 billion. It commenced offshore operations in August 2016.
Allseas Group S.A. is a Dutch offshore contractor specialising in pipelay, heavy lift and subsea construction. It was founded in 1985 by owner and president Edward Heerema, employs 4,000 people and operates worldwide.
Taisun is the world's strongest crane, having a safe working load of 20,000 metric tons. Taisun is designed by DHHI and built for the installation of very large modules in semi submersibles and FPSO projects. It is located at Yantai Raffles Shipyard in Yantai, Shandong Province, China. The crane holds the three heaviest lifts of all time respectively: 20,133 metric tons, 17,100 tons and 14,000 tons.
Heerema Marine Contractors (HMC) is a contractor headquartered in the Netherlands most notable for operation of three of the largest crane vessels in the offshore industry.
The Castoro Sei was a column stabilized semi-submersible pipelay vessel. She had an overall length of 152 metres (499 ft), a width of 70.5 metres (231 ft) and an operating draught of 7.8 to 15.5 metres.
Atlantis PQ is a BP and BHP joint venture semi-submersible oil platform on permanent location over the Green Canyon Atlantis Oil Field in deepwater Gulf of Mexico, 190 mi (310 km) south of New Orleans. The "PQ" identifies the platform as being a production facility with crew quarters.
Skandi Neptune is an Offshore Construction Vessel that was operated by Subsea 7 from 2005 until the charter was ended in 2015.
SSCV Hermod was a semi-submersible crane vessel operated by Heerema Marine Contractors.
DCV Aegir is a deepwater construction vessel (DCV) owned by Heerema Marine Contractors and was christened during a festive ceremony in September 2013.
On 14 September 1982 a medical evacuation helicopter flight operated by Bristow Helicopters crashed during the early hours of the morning in driving rain and poor visibility over the North Sea. All six crew members on board died when their aircraft plunged into the sea near the Murchison platform while trying to locate the Baffin Seal seismic survey vessel.
SSCV Sleipnir is a semi-submersible crane vessel (SSCV) owned and operated by Heerema Marine Contractors. It is named for Sleipnir, the eight-legged horse ridden by Odin in Norse mythology. The vessel is equipped with two revolving cranes built by Huisman Equipment B.V., each with a capacity of 10,000 t ; the main cranes can be operated in tandem to jointly lift 20,000 t. It was ordered in 2015 and built in Singapore by Sembcorp Marine. After its completion in 2019, SSCV Sleipnir succeeded Heerema's earlier SSCV Thialf as the largest crane vessel in the world.
Panama 