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 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 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.
Standing rigging comprises the fixed lines, wires, or rods, which support each mast or bowsprit on a sailing vessel and reinforce those spars against wind loads transferred from the sails. This term is used in contrast to running rigging, which represents the moveable elements of rigging which adjust the position and shape of the sails.
A jackhammer is a pneumatic or electro-mechanical tool that combines a hammer directly with a chisel. It was invented by William McReavy, who then sold the patent to Charles Brady King. Hand-held jackhammers are generally powered by compressed air, but some are also powered by electric motors. Larger jackhammers, such as rig-mounted hammers used on construction machinery, are usually hydraulically powered. These tools are typically used to break up rock, pavement, and concrete.
LP Odyssey is a self-propelled semi-submersible mobile spacecraft launch platform converted from a mobile drilling rig in 1997.
A guy-wire, guy-line, guy-rope, down guy, or stay, also called simply a guy, is a tensioned cable designed to add stability to a free-standing structure. They are used commonly for ship masts, radio masts, wind turbines, utility poles, and tents. A thin vertical mast supported by guy wires is called a guyed mast. Structures that support antennas are frequently of a lattice construction and are called "towers". One end of the guy is attached to the structure, and the other is anchored to the ground at some distance from the mast or tower base. The tension in the diagonal guy-wire, combined with the compression and buckling strength of the structure, allows the structure to withstand lateral loads such as wind or the weight of cantilevered structures. They are installed radially, usually at equal angles about the structure, in trios and quads. As the tower leans a bit due to the wind force, the increased guy tension is resolved into a compression force in the tower or mast and a lateral force that resists the wind load. For example, antenna masts are often held up by three guy-wires at 120° angles. Structures with predictable lateral loads, such as electrical utility poles, may require only a single guy-wire to offset the lateral pull of the electrical wires, at a spot where the wires change direction.
In petroleum and natural gas extraction, a Christmas tree, or "tree", is an assembly of valves, casing spools, and fittings used to regulate the flow of pipes in an oil well, gas well, water injection well, water disposal well, gas injection well, condensate well, and other types of well.
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.
An arresting gear, or arrestor gear, is a mechanical system used to rapidly decelerate an aircraft as it lands. Arresting gear on aircraft carriers is an essential component of naval aviation, and it is most commonly used on CATOBAR and STOBAR aircraft carriers. Similar systems are also found at land-based airfields for expeditionary or emergency use. Typical systems consist of several steel wire ropes laid across the aircraft landing area, designed to be caught by an aircraft's tailhook. During a normal arrestment, the tailhook engages the wire and the aircraft's kinetic energy is transferred to hydraulic damping systems attached below the carrier deck. There are other related systems that use nets to catch aircraft wings or landing gear. These barricade and barrier systems are only used for emergency arrestments for aircraft without operable tailhooks.
NOV Inc., formerly National Oilwell Varco, is an American multinational corporation based in Houston, Texas. It is a worldwide provider of equipment and components used in oil and gas drilling and production operations, oilfield services, and supply chain integration services to the upstream oil and gas industry. The company conducts operations in more than 500 locations across six continents, operating through three reporting segments: Rig Technologies, Wellbore Technologies, and Completion & Production Solutions.
A modern core drill is a drill specifically designed to remove a cylinder of material, much like a hole saw. The material left inside the drill bit is referred to as the core.
A blowout preventer (BOP) is a specialized valve or similar mechanical device, used to seal, control and monitor oil and gas wells to prevent blowouts, the uncontrolled release of crude oil or natural gas from a well. They are usually installed in stacks of other valves.
A drill string compensator decreases the influence of the heave of a drilling vessel on the drill bit. Drill string compensators are also known under the more general name: heave compensator. Drill string compensators are used onboard drill ships and semi-submersible drill rigs. There are two major types of drill string compensators:
A guideline tensioner is a hydropneumatic device used on an offshore drilling rig that keeps a positive pulling force on the guidelines from the platform to a template on the seabed.
A tensioner is a device that applies a force to create or maintain tension. The force may be applied parallel to, as in the case of a hydraulic bolt tensioner, or perpendicular to, as in the case of a spring-loaded bicycle chain tensioner, the tension it creates. The force may be generated by a fixed displacement, as in the case of an eccentric bicycle bottom bracket, which must be adjusted as parts wear, or by stretching or compressing a spring, as in the case of a spring-loaded bicycle chain tensioner; by changing the volume of a gas, as in the case of a marine riser tensioner; by hydraulic pressure, as in the case of a hydraulic bolt tensioner; or by gravity acting on a suspended mass, as in the case of a chair lift cable tensioner. In the power sector, the tensioner is a machine for maintaining constant tension of the conductors during work of hanging the transmission network..
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 than 150 meters.
A drilling riser is a conduit that provides a temporary extension of a subsea oil well to a surface drilling facility. Drilling risers are categorised into two types: marine drilling risers used with subsea blowout preventer (BOP) and generally used by floating drilling vessels; and tie-back drilling risers used with a surface BOP and generally deployed from fixed platforms or very stable floating platforms like a spar or tension leg platform (TLP).
An Emergency Disconnect Package (EDP) is a piece of equipment used in the drilling and work-over of deep sea oil & gas wells, by Mobile Offshore Drilling Rigs (MODU's) and Well Intervention Vessels (WIV's). The EDP is designed for use in an emergency, when the MODU or WIV needs to quickly disconnect, and move away from the oil/gas well that it is drilling or working-over. Examples of when this might be necessary include unexpected extreme weather that exceeds the MODU/Vessel's capability to maintain its position.
Wire rope spooling technology is the technology to prevent wire rope getting snagged when spooled, especially in multiple layers on a drum.
A hydraulic jigger is a hydraulically-powered mechanical winch.
