Offshore Production Platforms

Offshore drilling platforms

Once the exploratory drilling phase is over and geologists have determined that a petroleum
reservoir is worth the massive expense, oil companies prepare to establish an offshore
production platform. These rigs are designed to last decades, often far from land and in
some of the most hostile waters on Earth.
Construction crews typically build the platforms on a nearby coast and then transport them
as needed to the drilling site. Production costs for these vessels typically run in the
hundreds of millions of dollars. There are currently seven different varieties of offshore
platforms.
Fixed platform: This platform design tackles the challenges of offshore drilling in the most
straightforward and industrial way imaginable. Need to fix production facilities to a
position above your drilling site? Why not construct a gigantic tower of concrete and steel
and mount your oil rig on top? To fully comprehend the amount of materials that go into
constructing this underwater structure, consider that they operate at depths of 1,500 feet
(457 meters) or less -- that's just a little taller than Chicago's Sears Tower. These platforms
are extremely stable, despite the fact that the concrete base isn't even attached to the
seafloor. It simply stays in place due to all the weight above it. However, at depths greater
than 1,500 feet, the design begins to become more impractical due to material costs.

Compliant tower: These rigs take the basic idea of the fixed platform and make it viable to
operate in depths of 1,500 feet to 3,000 feet (457 meters to 914 meters). The design
achieves this by relying on a narrower tower of steel and concrete. But while fixed platform
designs are rigid, compliant towers are designed to sway and move with the stresses of
wind and sea -- even hurricanes. In this respect, they're much like modern skyscrapers that
are built to sway with the wind.
Sea Star platform: The Sea Star platform is basically a larger version of the
semisubmersible design we talked about in the last section. The production facilities sit
atop a large submersible hull on a tower. When the lower hull fills with water, it sinks to a
lower depth, providing stability while keeping the facilities high and dry. However, instead
of giant anchors holding it in place, the Sea Star is connected to the ocean floor by tension
legs. These long, hollow tubes remain rigid at all times, preventing any up-and-down
motion on the platform. The legs are just flexible enough to allow side-to-side motion,
which helps absorb the stress of waves and wind. These platforms operate from depths of
500 to 3,500 feet (152 to 1,067 meters) and are typically used to tap smaller reservoirs in
deep waters.
Floating production system: These platforms can take the form of either floating
semisubmersible platforms or drill ships. The basic idea behind their design is that, once the
well has been drilled, much of the production equipment can be mounted on the seafloor
and the petroleum pumped to the surface facilities through flexible risers. Meanwhile, the
platform or ship stays in position with anchors or a dynamic positioning system. This
approach allows oil companies to reach depths of up to 6,000 feet (1,829 meters).
Tension leg platform: This platform is essentially a king-sized version of the Sea Star
platform, except the tension legs extend from the ocean floor to the platform itself. It
experiences more horizontal motion and a certain degree of vertical motion, but it allows
oil companies to drill at depths of up to 7,000 feet (2,134 meters), well over a mile (1.6
kilometers) beneath the waves.
Subsea system: This approach takes the idea of mounting the wellhead on the sea floor and
applies it to even greater depths -- 7,000 feet (2,1334 meters) or more. Once the well has
been drilled by a surface platform, the automated systems transfer the oil and natural gas to
production facilities by either risers or undersea pipelines.
Spar platform: Finally, if you absolutely need to drill a hole at a depth of 10,000 feet
(3,048 meters), then the spar platform is the oil rig for you. With this design, the drilling
platform sits atop a giant, hollow cylindrical hull. The other end of the cylinder descends
around 700 feet (213 meters) into the ocean depths. While the cylinder stops far above the
ocean floor, its weight stabilizes the platform. A network of taunt cables and lines trail out
from the cylinder to secure it to the ocean floor in what is called a lateral catenary system.
The drill string descends down through the length of the cylinder's interior and down to the
ocean floor.

As technology improves and existing petroleum reserves wane, exploration will continue to
dive into the subterranean depths. This combination of deeper waters and deeper oil wells
will pose even greater challenges for oil companies.