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.
Offshore construction is the installation of structures and facilities in a marine environment, usually for the production and transmission of electricity, oil, gas and other resources. It is also called maritime engineering.
Ocean Ranger was a semi-submersible mobile offshore drilling unit that sank in Canadian waters on 15 February 1982. It was drilling an exploration well on the Grand Banks of Newfoundland, 267 kilometres (166 mi) east of St. John's, Newfoundland, for Mobil Oil of Canada, Ltd. (MOCAN) with 84 crew members on board when it sank. There were no survivors.
Port Fourchon is Louisiana’s southernmost port, located on the southern tip of Lafourche Parish, on the Gulf of Mexico. It is a seaport, with significant petroleum industry traffic from offshore Gulf oil platforms and drilling rigs as well as the Louisiana Offshore Oil Port pipeline. Fourchon's primary service markets are domestic deepwater oil and gas exploration, drilling, and production in the Gulf. Port Fourchon currently services over 90% of the Gulf of Mexico's deepwater oil production. There are over 600 oil platforms within a 40-mile radius of Port Fourchon. This area furnishes 16 to 18 percent of the US oil supply.
A tension-leg platform (TLP) or extended tension leg platform (ETLP) is a vertically moored floating structure normally used for the offshore production of oil or gas, and is particularly suited for water depths greater than 300 metres and less than 1500 metres. Use of tension-leg platforms has also been proposed for offshore wind turbines.
The Louisiana Offshore Oil Port (LOOP) is a deepwater port in the Gulf of Mexico 29 kilometers off the coast of Louisiana near the town of Port Fourchon. LOOP provides tanker offloading and temporary storage services for crude oil transported on some of the largest tankers in the world. Most tankers offloading at LOOP are too large for U.S. inland ports. LOOP handles 13 percent of the nation's foreign oil, about 1.2 million barrels (190,000 m3) a day, and connects by pipeline to 50 percent of the U.S. refining capability.
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 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.
Marine architecture is the design of architectural and engineering structures which support coastal design, near-shore and off-shore or deep-water planning for many projects such as shipyards, ship transport, coastal management or other marine and/or hydroscape activities. These structures include harbors, lighthouses, marinas, oil platforms, offshore drillings, accommodation platforms and offshore wind farms, floating engineering structures and building architectures or civil seascape developments. Floating structures in deep water may use suction caisson for anchoring.
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, marine or ocean engineering, ocean exploration, remotely operated vehicle (ROVs) autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs), submarine communications or power cables, seafloor mineral mining, oil and gas, and offshore wind power.
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 and all attached machinery to a desired location. Once on location the hull is raised to the required elevation above the sea surface supported by the sea bed. The legs of such units may be designed to penetrate the sea bed, may be fitted with enlarged sections or footings, or may be attached to a bottom mat. Generally jackup rigs are not self-propelled and rely on tugs or heavy lift ships for transportation.
Edison Chouest Offshore (ECO), which started as Edison Chouest Boat Rentals in 1960, is family of companies in the marine transportation business based in Cut Off, Louisiana. ECO owns and operates a fleet of platform supply vessels, Subsea Construction / IMR vessels, a Riserless Light Well Intervention vessel, Anchor handling tug supply vessels, Oil Spill Response Vessels, and Well Stimulation Vessels, as well as an independently owned fleet of Research Vessels and Ice Breakers.
Mr. Louie is a former self-elevating drilling barge converted into an oil platform. It was the first self-elevating drilling barge classed by the American Bureau of Shipping. As an oil platform, it operates at the Saltpond Oil Field, offshore Ghana.
Bennett Offshore, L.L.C., is an independent naval architecture, design and consulting firm founded in 1997 by William T. Bennett, Jr., to deliver engineering services to the offshore industry. Bennett headquarters are located in Houston, Texas, and the company has an engineering office in New Orleans, Louisiana. Bennett Offshore provides traditional naval architecture, structural, mechanical and electrical engineering as well as hydrodynamics and other marine- and offshore-related services. In addition, the firm is involved in design, modification, and construction supervision of marine vessels, liftboats and other offshore mobile drilling and production units. Bennett Offshore worked in collaboration with the Offshore Technology Development group of Keppel Offshore & Marine to design the ORCA series of self-propelled, self-elevating platforms.
A crew boat, also called a crewboat, crew transfer vessel, fast support vessel,fast supply vessel or fast intervention supply vessel, is a vessel specialized in the transport of offshore support personnel, deck cargo, and below-deck cargo such as fuel and potable water to and from offshore installations such as oil platforms, drilling rigs, drill and dive ships or wind farms.
SEACOR Holdings, based in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, provides equipment and services to the offshore petroleum industry and the marine transportation industry. An Aermican corporation, the company holds a 70% ownership stake in a bioethanol plant located in Illinois.
A wind turbine installation vessel (WTIV) is a vessel specifically designed for the installation of offshore wind turbines. There were 16 such vessels in 2020.
MV Megan, formerly known as MV GO Searcher, is one of SpaceX's two Dragon capsule recovery vessels. Owned by SpaceX through Falcon Landing LLC, this vessel, along with its sister ship, MV Shannon, are converted platform supply vessels now equipped to retrieve Crew and Cargo Dragon capsules after splashdown.
Ocean development refers to the establishing of human activities at sea and use of the ocean, as well as its governance.
The Seacor Power was a 234-foot (71 m), 265 Class liftboat, constructed in 2002, belonging to Seacor Marine and flagged in the United States. The ship was powered by two Caterpillar 3508B@1900hp engines.
