What are the most common types of oil rigs? Here we present the most fascinating cases of these large buildings for the production of oil and gas.
Semi-submersible
They are platforms suitable for depths between 150 and 600 meters. They have excellent stability at sea and hold their position well. They are used both to explore and to produce.
The largest semi-submersible platform in the world is Thunder Horse, located in the Gulf of Mexico. It is capable of extracting 250,000 barrels of crude oil per day. Thunder Horse is also proof of the robustness of this type of platform since it has managed to survive storms.
Gravity platforms
They are those of fixed production supported on the seabed, which also allow storage. They can operate in adverse seas, making them ideal in areas such as the North Sea. There are only 10 units in the world.
One of them is Berkut, in the Russian Pacific, the largest platform in the world. Weighing more than 200,000 tons, it was designed to withstand adversities in the area, such as temperatures of up to -44 degrees celsius, 16-meter waves or ice formations.
FPSO (Floating Production Storage Offloading)
They are ship-like structures that allow the production, treatment and storage of crude oil.
A good example is the Stones oil rig that operates in the Gulf of Mexico. It is the deepest in the world, with a depth of 2,900 meters. Stones extracts oil from eight different wells and at its maximum capacity achieves about 50,000 barrels a day.
SPAR
They are floating production units and have vast storage capacity. It has excellent behavior and stability, which it achieves by lowering its center of gravity using ballast. They allow horizontal mobility.
The largest in the world, Perdido, is also located in the Gulf of Mexico and operates at a depth of 2,450 meters. The platform obtains oil and gas from an architecture of more than 40 square kilometers of interconnected wells.
TLP (Tension Leg Platform)
These hybrid production units consist of floating supports anchored by cables, for depths of up to 1,500 meters. Almost all of them are in the Gulf of Mexico, connected to a structure of gas and crude oil pipelines.
