Wednesday, March 2, 2011

Doesn't look like a rig to me.

Safety is a big issue in the drilling industry as well as considering the environment.  For these reasons, casing is set to protect ground water as well as multiple wells are drilled from one pad to avoid extreme foot printing.  Have you ever seen an offshore rig platform from the coast?  It is an interesting site and something one can appreciate, some more than others I guess.  In some cases, the site of an offshore rig close to shore can upset some people.  On my field session trip to California, I visited an offshore rig on a man made island.  This island was one of  four island called the THUMS islands.  The name THUMS comes from the companies which partially obtained ownership, Texaco, Humble, Unocal, Mobil and Shell until Oxy purchased the four islands.  The interesting aspect of this offshore drilling operation is the disguise which is contains to comply with regulations.  Can you see the drilling rig in the pictures?  The rig is the hotel like structure which can travel around the island via a set of tracks which are in place.  Surrounding the area are also, palm, trees, waterfalls, and other landscaping materials.  Below are a couple of pictures of how one of the THUMS islands appears in the day and night. 

1 comment:

  1. Now that is completely freaking surreal. What do you think about that?

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