Oil platform: Meaning (information, definition, explanation, facts)

An oil platform is a large structure used to house workers and machinery needed to drill and then produce oil (and often natural gas as well) in the ocean. Depending on the circumstances, the platform may be attached to the ocean floor, consist of an artificial island, or be floating.

Generally, oil platforms are located on the continental shelf though as technology improves, drilling and production in ever deeper waters becomes both feasible and economic. A typical platform may have around thirty wellheads located on the platform and directional drilling allows reservoirs to be accessed at both different depths and at remote positions up to maybe five miles from the platform. Many platforms also have remote wellheads attached by umbilical connections, these may be single wells or a manifold centre for multiple wells.

Various types of structure are used, steel jacket, concrete caisson, floating steel and even floating concrete. The concrete caisson structures often have in-built oil storage in tanks below the sea surface and these tanks were often used as a flotation capability, allowing them to be built close to shore (Norwegian fjords are popular because they are sheltered and deep enough) and then floated to their final position where they are sunk to the sea bed. Steel jackets are fabricated on land and towed by barge to their destination where a crane is used to upright the jacket and locate it on the sea bed. Steel jackets are usually piled into the sea bed.

A typical oil production platform is self-sufficient in energy and water needs, housing electrical generation, water desalinators and all of the equipment necessary to process oil and gas such that it can be either delivered directly onshore by pipeline or to a Floating Storage Unit and/or tanker loading facility. Elements in the oil/gas production process include wellhead, production manifold, production separator, glycol process to dry gas, gas compressors, water injection pumps, oil/gas export metering and main oil line pumps. All production facilities are designed to have minimal environmental impact.

The Petronius platform is an oil and gas platform in the Gulf of Mexico, which stands 610 m (2000 feet) above the ocean floor. This structure is partially supported by buoyancy. Depending on the criteria it may be the world's tallest structure.

In practice, these larger platforms are assisted by smaller ESVs (emergency support vessels) like the British Iolair that are summoned when something has gone wrong, e.g. a search and rescue operation is required. During normal operations, PSVs (platform supply vessels) keep the platforms provisioned and supplied, and AHTS vessels can also supply them, as well as tow them to location and serve as standby rescue and firefighting vessels.