Straight in the Water

This article reviews that deepwater oil platforms are kept afloat and the oil they produce is kept pumping with the help of a host of advanced technologies. Not the least among them is the technologies that play a particularly strong role in calculating the critical operations of large oil rigs, like that of the Chevron Genesis project. The Genesis platform is located in water where weather is powerful and changeable, and is therefore always a concern. The crew must be ready to deal with weather at a moment’s notice, and also must deal with the day-to-day events of life aboard an oil drilling plat form. Software also plays a role in positioning the risers. They must be located in such a way as to allow them to remain standing against the force of the waves in deep waters. Piping systems are often designed and laid out in a computer-assisted drawing or modeling program. The plan for the pipes is downloaded from the design system to the analysis program in order for engineers to study the structure and to calculate stresses and loads.