''Perdido'' (Spanish for ''lost'') is the deepest floating

oil platform An oil platform (also called an oil rig, offshore platform, oil production platform, etc.) 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 w ...

in the world at a water depth of about 2,450 meters (8,040 feet) operated by the

Shell Oil Company Shell USA, Inc. (formerly Shell Oil Company, Inc.) is the United States–based wholly owned subsidiary of Shell plc, a UK-based transnational corporation " oil major" which is among the largest oil companies in the world. Approximately 18,000 ...

in the

Gulf of Mexico The Gulf of Mexico () is an oceanic basin and a marginal sea of the Atlantic Ocean, mostly surrounded by the North American continent. It is bounded on the northeast, north, and northwest by the Gulf Coast of the United States; on the southw ...

. The platform is located in the Perdido fold belt which is a rich discovery of crude oil and natural gas. The Perdido spar began production in 2010 and its peak production is 100,000

barrels of oil equivalent The barrel of oil equivalent (BOE) is a unit of energy based on the approximate energy released by burning one barrel (, or about ) of crude oil. The BOE is used by oil and gas companies in their financial statements as a way of combining oil an ...

(c. ) and 200 million cubic feet of gas per day (c. ).

Construction and assembly

The spar and the topsides of the Perdido were constructed separately and then assembled in its final position in the Gulf of Mexico. The Perdido's hull or spar was constructed by

Technip Technip S.A. was a company that carried out project management, engineering and construction for the energy industry; in 2017 it completed a merger with FMC Technologies to form TechnipFMC. Its headquarters were in the 16th arrondissement of Par ...

Pori, Finland Pori (; ; ) is a city in Finland and the regional capital of Satakunta. It is located on the west coast of the country, on the Gulf of Bothnia. The population of Pori is approximately , while the sub-region has a population of approximately . It ...

. A barge shipped the 22,000 tonne spar 13,200 kilometres (8,200 miles) from the

Baltic Sea The Baltic Sea is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that is enclosed by the countries of Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Russia, Sweden, and the North European Plain, North and Central European Plain regions. It is the ...

to the Gulf of Mexico. After floating the spar, it was towed to its final home above the Alaminos canyon 320 kilometres (120 miles) from the shore. The spar was rotated by the ''

Balder Baldr (Old Norse also Balder, Baldur) is a god in Germanic mythology. In Norse mythology, he is a son of the god Odin and the goddess Frigg, and has numerous brothers, such as Thor and Váli. In wider Germanic mythology, the god was known in ...

'' from a horizontal to a vertical floating position by pumping water through hoses attached to the spar. It was then anchored by the ''Balder'' to piles in the seafloor. The platform has three decks or topsides which support the oil and gas processing units, a drilling rig and living quarters for the workers. The topsides were designed by Alliance Engineering and constructed by Kiewit Offshore in

Corpus Christi, Texas Corpus Christi ( ; ) is a Gulf Coast of the United States, coastal city in the South Texas region of the U.S. state of Texas and the county seat and largest city of Nueces County, Texas, Nueces County with portions extending into Aransas County, T ...

. The temperature difference between Finland and Texas posed a challenge in assembling the pieces as the components built in the cold of northern Europe expand in the heat of the Gulf of Mexico. Computer-guided lasers marked out the measurements to ensure precision. After the decks were constructed, in March 2009 the ''

Thialf Thialf () is an ice arena in Heerenveen, Netherlands. Thialf is used for long track speed skating, short track speed skating, ice hockey, figure skating, ice speedway, and non-sporting events. The outdoor rink was opened in 1967, and the indoo ...

'' lifted the 9,500 tonne topsides onto four posts on the spar and slotted it into position. The Perdido has the ability to adjust the tension of the mooring cables which allows it to move around in the area of a soccer field. This is used to be placed – if needed – directly above one of the 22 wellheads on the seafloor.

Operation

Operated by Shell, with JV partners

Chevron Chevron (often relating to V-shaped patterns) may refer to: Science and technology * Chevron (aerospace), sawtooth patterns on some jet engines * Chevron (anatomy), a bone * '' Eulithis testata'', a moth * Chevron (geology), a fold in rock la ...

(37.5%) and BP (27.5%), the spar acts as a hub for and enables development of three fields Great White, Tobago, and Silvertip. The oil and gas fields beneath the platform lie in a geological formation holding resources estimated at 3–15 billion barrels of oil equivalent according to a report by the BSEE, formerly known as the MMS. At peak production, Perdido processes 100,000 barrels of oil equivalent a day, and 200 million cubic feet of gas. Perdido extracts oil from 35 subsea wells, of which 22 lie beneath the spar, while 13 wells are located eight miles west of the platform. These are connected via a 44 kilometre (27 mile) network of pipelines on the ocean floor the manifold below the platform, where the oil is pumped upwards in five flexible pipes called risers. This complicated subsea installation is needed, as the reservoir pressure is rather low which means the transport from the seafloor to the ocean surface needs pumps, the number of which had to be minimized.Jon Excell
"Building Perdido – the world's deepest floating oil platform"
''The Engineer''. 26 October 2009. A workforce of 172 people keep it up and running. They work in 12-hour shifts for two weeks followed by two weeks off back on land.

Safety

The platform has extensive safety equipment to protect workers in this remote location. It has the largest rescue boat used on any Shell facility, which has room for 24 people. The living quarters are blast-resistant. Perdido's

helipad A helipad is the landing area of a heliport, in use by helicopters, powered lift, and vertical lift aircraft to land on surface. While helicopters and powered lift aircraft are able to operate on a variety of relatively flat surfaces, a fa ...

can accommodate two

Sikorsky S-92 The Sikorsky S-92 is an American twin-engine medium-lift helicopter built by Sikorsky Aircraft for the civil and military helicopter markets. The S-92 was developed from the Sikorsky S-70 helicopter and has similar parts such as flight control ...

helicopters that can carry 19 passengers each.

Notes

References

Inside Perdido
Shell.com

Shell.com

Shell.com *

External links

*Excell, Jon
Shell's Perdido platform will be world's deepest
''The Engineer'', 2 November 2009 * Clanton, Brett
Shells Perdido blazes a deep water trail
''Houston Chronicle'', April 18, 2010 * *Fahey, Jonathan
Deepwater oil rig work takes a certain attitude
NBC news, 1/3/2012

retrieved 28/03/2013
Scale diagram in the Skyscraper page
{{coord, 26, 7, 44, N, 94, 53, 53, W, source:itwiki, display=title Oil platforms Structural engineering Petroleum production 2009 establishments in the United States