1.
North Sea
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The North Sea is a marginal sea of the Atlantic Ocean located between Great Britain, Scandinavia, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, and France. An epeiric sea on the European continental shelf, it connects to the ocean through the English Channel in the south and it is more than 970 kilometres long and 580 kilometres wide, with an area of around 570,000 square kilometres. The North Sea has long been the site of important European shipping lanes as well as a major fishery, the North Sea was the centre of the Vikings rise. Subsequently, the Hanseatic League, the Netherlands, and the British each sought to dominate the North Sea and thus the access to the markets, as Germanys only outlet to the ocean, the North Sea continued to be strategically important through both World Wars. The coast of the North Sea presents a diversity of geological and geographical features, in the north, deep fjords and sheer cliffs mark the Norwegian and Scottish coastlines, whereas in the south it consists primarily of sandy beaches and wide mudflats. Due to the population, heavy industrialization, and intense use of the sea and area surrounding it. In the southwest, beyond the Straits of Dover, the North Sea becomes the English Channel connecting to the Atlantic Ocean, in the east, it connects to the Baltic Sea via the Skagerrak and Kattegat, narrow straits that separate Denmark from Norway and Sweden respectively. In the north it is bordered by the Shetland Islands, and connects with the Norwegian Sea, the North Sea is more than 970 kilometres long and 580 kilometres wide, with an area of 570,000 square kilometres and a volume of 54,000 cubic kilometres. Around the edges of the North Sea are sizeable islands and archipelagos, including Shetland, Orkney, the North Sea receives freshwater from a number of European continental watersheds, as well as the British Isles. A large part of the European drainage basin empties into the North Sea including water from the Baltic Sea, the largest and most important rivers flowing into the North Sea are the Elbe and the Rhine – Meuse watershed. Around 185 million people live in the catchment area of the rivers discharging into the North Sea encompassing some highly industrialized areas, for the most part, the sea lies on the European continental shelf with a mean depth of 90 metres. The only exception is the Norwegian trench, which extends parallel to the Norwegian shoreline from Oslo to a north of Bergen. It is between 20 and 30 kilometres wide and has a depth of 725 metres. The Dogger Bank, a vast moraine, or accumulation of unconsolidated glacial debris and this feature has produced the finest fishing location of the North Sea. The Long Forties and the Broad Fourteens are large areas with uniform depth in fathoms. These great banks and others make the North Sea particularly hazardous to navigate, the Devils Hole lies 200 miles east of Dundee, Scotland. The feature is a series of trenches between 20 and 30 kilometres long,1 and 2 kilometres wide and up to 230 metres deep. Other areas which are less deep are Cleaver Bank, Fisher Bank, the International Hydrographic Organization defines the limits of the North Sea as follows, On the Southwest
2.
Drillship
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A drillship is a merchant vessel designed for use in exploratory offshore drilling of new oil and gas wells or for scientific drilling purposes. In most recent years the vessels are used in deepwater and ultra-deepwater applications, the first drillship was the CUSS I, designed by Robert F. Bauer of Global Marine in 1955. The CUSS I had drilled in 400 feet deep waters by 1957, Robert F. Bauer became the first president of the Global Marine in 1958. In 1961 Global Marine started a new drillship era and they ordered several self-propelled drillships each with a rated centerline drilling of 20,000 foot-wells in water depths of 600 feet. The first was named CUSS II, a 5, 500-deadweight-ton vessel, built by a Gulf Coast shipyard, the vessel was almost twice the size of the CUSS I, and became the world’s first drillship built as new construction which set sail in 1962. In 1962 The Offshore Company elected to build a new type of drillship and this new drillships would feature a first ever anchor mooring array based on a unique turret system. The vessel was named Discoverer I, the Discoverer I had no main propulsion engines, meaning they needed to be towed out to the drill site. The drillship can be used as a platform to carry out maintenance or completion work such as casing and tubing installation, subsea tree installations. Drillships are often built to the specification to meet the requirements set by the oil production company and/or investors. From the first drillship CUSS I to the Deepwater Asgard the fleet size has been growing ever since, in 2013 the worldwide fleet of drillships tops 80 ships, more than double its size in 2009. Drillships are not only growing in size but also in capability with new technology assisting operations from academic research to ice-breaker class drilling vessels. U. S. President Barack Obamas decision in late March 2010 to expand U. S. domestic exploratory drilling seems likely to further developments of drillship technology. Drillships are just one way to various types of drilling. This function can also be performed by semi-submersibles, jackups, barges, drillships have the functional ability of semi-submersible drilling rigs and also have a few unique features that separate them from all others. A drillship has greater mobility and can move quickly under its own propulsion from drill site to site in contrast to semi-submersibles and jackup barges. Drillships have the ability to save time sailing between oilfields worldwide, a drillship takes 20 days to move from the Gulf of Mexico to the Offshore Angola. Whereas, a drilling unit must be towed and takes 70 days. Drillship construction cost is higher than that of a semi-submersible
3.
Marine vessel
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Watercraft are water-borne vehicles including ships, boats, hovercraft and submarines. Watercraft usually have propulsive capability and hence are distinct from a device that merely floats. Most watercraft would be described as either a ship or a boat, however, there are numerous craft which many people would consider neither a ship nor a boat, such as, surfboards, underwater robots, seaplanes, jetskis and torpedoes. Although ships are larger than boats, the distinction between those two categories is not one of size per se. Ships are typically large ocean-going vessels, whereas boats are smaller, and typically travel most often on inland or coastal waters. A rule of thumb says a boat can fit on a ship, but a ship cant fit on a boat, local law and regulation may define the exact size that distinguishes a ship from a boat. A merchant ship is any floating craft that transports cargo for the purpose of earning revenue, in that context, the term watercraft is rarely used to describe any individual object, rather the term serves to unify the category that ranges from jet skis to aircraft carriers. Such a vessel may be used in saltwater and freshwater, for pleasure, recreation, physical exercise, commerce, in general, the purpose of a water vehicle identifies its utility with a maritime industry sub-sector. The design from which a vehicle is created usually seeks to achieve a balance between internal capacity, speed and seaworthiness. Propulsion is the application of technology in watercraft. Current technological development seeks to identify cheaper, renewable and less polluting sources of propulsion for watercraft of all shapes and sizes, secondary applications of technology in watercraft have been those of used structural materials, navigation aids, and in the case of warships, weapon systems. Watercraft registration is the registration of a watercraft with a government authority, identification consists of an alphanumeric string called a vessel registration number that is issued in the United States by the states Department of Motor Vehicles. Navigation aids have varied over time, from observation, to mechanical mechanisms. Since the early 20th century, there has been a development in technologies which allow force projection from a naval task force to a land objective using marine infantry. The Canadian Museum of Civilization - Native Watercraft in Canada A History of Recreational Small Watercraft Recreational Watercraft
4.
Offshore drilling
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Offshore drilling is a mechanical process where a wellbore is drilled below the seabed. It is typically carried out in order to explore for and subsequently extract petroleum which lies in rock formations beneath the seabed. Most commonly, the term is used to describe drilling activities on the shelf, though the term can also be applied to drilling in lakes, inshore waters. Offshore drilling presents environmental challenges, both from the hydrocarbons and the materials used during the drilling operation. Controversies include the ongoing US offshore drilling debate, there are many different types of facilities from which offshore drilling operations take place. These are capable of operating in depths up to 3,000 metres. Around 1891, the first submerged oil wells were drilled from platforms built on piles in the waters of the Grand Lake St. Marys in Ohio. The wells were developed by local companies such as Bryson, Riley Oil, German-American. Around 1896, the first submerged oil wells in salt water were drilled in the portion of the Summerland field extending under the Santa Barbara Channel in California, the wells were drilled from piers extending from land out into the channel. Other notable early submerged drilling activities occurred on the Canadian side of Lake Erie in the 1900s, shortly thereafter wells were drilled in tidal zones along the Texas and Louisiana gulf coast. The Goose Creek Oil Field near Baytown, Texas is one such example, in the 1920s drilling activities occurred from concrete platforms in Venezuelas Lake Maracaibo. One of the oldest subsea wells is the Bibi Eibat well, the well was located on an artificial island in a shallow portion of the Caspian Sea. In the early 1930s, the Texas Co. later Texaco developed the first mobile steel barges for drilling in the coastal areas of the Gulf of Mexico. In 1937, Pure Oil and its partner Superior Oil used a platform to develop a field 1 mile offshore of Calcasieu Parish. In 1938, Humble Oil built a wooden trestle with railway tracks into the sea at McFadden Beach on the Gulf of Mexico. In 1946, Magnolia Petroleum drilled at a site 18 miles off the coast, erecting a platform in 18 feet of water off St. Mary Parish, Louisiana. In early 1947, Superior Oil erected a drilling and production platform in 20 feet of water some 18 miles off Vermilion Parish, in any case, that made Kerr-McGees well the first oil discovery drilled out of sight of land. The first semi-submersible resulted from an observation in 1961
5.
Float (nautical)
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Floats are airtight hollow structures, similar to pressure vessels, designed to provide buoyancy in water. Their principal applications are in watercraft hulls and aircraft floats, floating pier and pontoon bridge construction, floats make up the multipart hulls of catamarans and trimarans and provide buoyancy for floatplanes and seaplanes. They are used in bridges, floating piers, and floats anchored to the seabed for recreation or dockage. They are also used in shipbuilding and marine salvage, often deployed uninflated then pressurized to raise a sunken object, pontoons for marine industrial uses are usually fabricated from steel plate and sheet. Pontoons as parts of watercraft and aircraft are more typically molded in glass-reinforced plastic, in model building, floats can easily be carved out of solid blocks or laminated sheets of foam
6.
Ship stability
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Ship stability is an area of naval architecture and ship design that deals with how a ship behaves at sea, both in still water and in waves, whether intact or damaged. Stability calculations focus on the center of gravity, center of buoyancy, ship stability, as it pertains to naval architecture, has been taken into account for hundreds of years. Historically, ship stability calculations for ships relied on rule of thumb calculations, some of these very old equations continue to be used in naval architecture books today. Master shipbuilders of the past used a system of adaptive and variant design, ships were often copied from one generation to the next with only minor changes being made, by replicating a stable design serious problems were not often encountered. Before this a breach in any part of a vessel could flood the entire length of the ship. Longitudinal bulkheads have a purpose, but damaged stability effects must be taken into account to eliminate excessive heeling. Today, most ships have means to equalize the water in sections port and starboard and these systems are designed to reduce the effects of waves or wind gusts. They do not increase the stability of the vessel in a calm sea, the International Maritime Organization International Convention on Load Lines does not mention active stability systems as a method of ensuring stability. The hull must be stable without active systems, a bilge keel is a long fin of metal, often in a V shape, welded along the length of the ship at the turn of the bilge. Bilge keels are employed in pairs, a ship may have more than one bilge keel per side, but this is rare. Bilge keels increase the resistance when a vessel rolls, thus limiting the amount of roll a vessel has to endure. Outriggers may be employed on vessels to reduce rolling. Rolling is reduced either by the required to submerge buoyant floats or by hydrodynamic foils. In some cases these outriggers may be of sufficient size to classify the vessel as a trimaran, antiroll tanks are tanks within the vessel fitted with baffles intended to slow the rate of water transfer from the port side of the tank to the starboard side. The tank is designed such that an amount of water is trapped on the higher side of the vessel. This is intended to have a completely opposite to that of the free surface effect. Paravanes may be employed by slow-moving vessels to reduce roll, many vessels are fitted with active stability systems. Active stability systems are defined by the need to input energy to the system in the form of a pump, hydraulic piston and these systems include stabilizer fins attached to the side of the vessel or tanks in which fluid is pumped around to counteract the motion of the vessel
7.
Submersible drilling rig
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A submersible drilling rig is a marine vessel design that can be floated to location and lowered onto the sea floor for offshore drilling activities. The submersible drilling platform is supported on large pontoon-like structures and these pontoons provide buoyancy allowing the unit to be towed from location to location. Once on the location, the structure is slowly flooded until it rests securely on its anchors. The operating deck is elevated 100 feet above the pontoons on large steel columns to provide clearance above the waves, after the well is drilled, the water is pumped out of the buoyancy tanks and the vessel is re-floated and towed to the next location. Submersibles, as they are known informally, operate in shallow water. Other floating vessel types are used in water depths. The term Mobile Offshore Drilling Unit is generally used for all offshore drilling rigs that can be moved from location to location, the first offshore mobile drilling platform was the Hayward-Barnsdall Breton Rig 20, first operated in 1949. This rig had evolved from the inland drilling barges which were used to drill in marshes, the Breton Rig 20 was 160 feet by 85 feet, and could work in 20 feet water depth. By 1958, the number of drilling rigs had increased to around 30. Alden J. Laborde designed and constructed the first purpose-built V-shaped semi-submersible drilling rig, Ocean Driller, delivered in 1963
8.
Seabed
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The seabed is the bottom of the ocean. Most of the oceans have a structure, created by common physical phenomena, mainly from tectonic movement. The mid-ocean ridge, as its name implies, is a rise through the middle of all the oceans. Typically a rift runs along the edge of this ridge, along tectonic plate edges there are typically oceanic trenches – deep valleys, created by the mantle circulation movement from the mid-ocean mountain ridge to the oceanic trench. Hotspot volcanic island ridges are created by volcanic activity, erupting periodically, in areas with volcanic activity and in the oceanic trenches there are hydrothermal vents – releasing high pressure and extremely hot water and chemicals into the typically freezing water around it. Deep ocean water is divided into layers or zones, each with features of salinity, pressure, temperature and marine life. Lying along the top of the plain is the abyssal zone. The hadal zone – which includes the oceanic trenches, lies between 6, 000–11,000 metres and is the deepest oceanic zone, the acronym mbsf meaning meters below the seafloor is a convention used for depths below the seafloor. Benthos is the community of organisms which live on, in, or near the seabed and this community lives in or near marine sedimentary environments, from tidal pools along the foreshore, out to the continental shelf, and then down to the abyssal depths. The benthic zone is the region on, in and immediately above the seabed, including the sediment surface. Benthos generally live in relationship with the substrate bottom. Examples of contact soil layers include sand bottoms, rocky outcrops, coral, each area of the seabed has typical features such as common soil composition, typical topography, salinity of water layers above it, marine life, magnetic direction of rocks, and sedimentation. Seabed topography is flat where sedimentation is heavy and covers the tectonic features, marine life is abundant in the deep sea, especially around hydrothermal vents. Large deep sea communities of life have been discovered around black and white smokers—vents emitting chemicals toxic to humans. This marine life receives its energy both from the temperature difference and from chemosynthesis by bacteria. Brine pools are another seabed feature, usually connected to cold seeps, the seabed has been explored by submersibles such as Alvin and, to some extent, scuba divers with special equipment. The process that adds new material to the ocean floor is seafloor spreading. In recent years satellite images show a very clear mapping of the seabed, some childrens play songs include elements such as Theres a hole at the bottom of the sea, or A sailor went to sea
9.
Draft (hull)
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Draft determines the minimum depth of water a ship or boat can safely navigate. The draft can also be used to determine the weight of the cargo on board by calculating the displacement of water. A table made by the shows the water displacement for each draft. The density of the water and the content of the bunkers has to be taken into account. The closely related term trim is defined as the difference between the forward and aft drafts, the draft aft is measured in the perpendicular of the stern. The draft forward is measured in the perpendicular of the bow, the scale may use traditional English units or metric units. If the English system is used, the bottom of each marking is the draft in feet, in metric marking schemes, the bottom of each draft mark is the draft in decimeters and each mark is one decimeter high. Larger ships try to maintain a water draft when they are light, in order to make a better sea crossing. In order to achieve this they use sailing ballasts to stabilize the ship, the water draft of a large ship has little direct link with its stability because stability depends solely on the respective positions of the metacenter of the hull and the center of gravity. It is also however, that a light ship has quite high stability which can lead to implying too much rolling of the ship. A fully laden ship can have either a strong or weak stability, the draft of ships can be increased when the ship is in motion in shallow water, a phenomenon known as squat. Draft is a significant factor limiting navigable waterways, especially for large vessels, of course this includes many shallow coastal waters and reefs, but also some major shipping lanes. Panamax class ships—the largest ships able to transit the Panama Canal—do have a limit but are usually limited by beam, or sometimes length overall. However, in the much wider Suez Canal, the factor for Suezmax ships is draft. Some supertankers are able to transit the Suez Canal when unladen or partially laden, canals are not the only draft-limited shipping lanes. A Malaccamax ship has the deepest draft able to transit the very busy, there are only a few ships of this size. A small draft allows pleasure boats to navigate through shallower water and this makes it possible for these boats to access smaller ports, to travel along rivers and even to beach the boat. A large draft ensures a level of stability in strong wind
10.
Heavy-lift ship
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A semi-submersible is a specialised marine vessel used in a number of specific offshore roles such as offshore drilling rigs, safety vessels, oil production platforms, and heavy lift cranes. They are designed with good stability and seakeeping characteristics, other terms include semisubmersible, semi-sub, or simply semi. Offshore drilling in water greater than around 520 meters requires that operations be carried out from a floating vessel. A semi-submersible obtains most of its buoyancy from ballasted, watertight pontoons located below the ocean surface, structural columns connect the pontoons and operating deck. The operating deck can be located high above the sea owing to the good stability of the design. With its hull structure submerged at a draft, the semi-submersible is less affected by wave loadings than a normal ship. With a small area, however, the semi-submersible is sensitive to load changes. Unlike a submersible, a vessel is not supported by resting on the seabed. Semi-submersible vessels are able to transform from a deep to a draft by deballasting. Usually they are moved from location to location in this configuration, the heavy lift vessels use this capability to submerge the majority of their structure, locate beneath another floating vessel, and then deballast to pick up the other vessel as a cargo. The semi-submersible design was first developed for offshore drilling activities, bruce Collipp of Shell is regarded as the inventor. When oil drilling moved into offshore waters, fixed platform rigs and submersible rigs were built, when demands for drilling equipment was needed in water depths greater than 100 feet in the Gulf of Mexico, the first jackup rigs were built. The first semisubmersible arrived by accident in 1961, Blue Water Drilling Company owned and operated the four column submersible drilling rig Blue Water Rig No.1 in the Gulf of Mexico for Shell Oil Company. It was observed that the motions at this draught were very small, the first purpose built drilling semi-submersible Ocean Driller was launched in 1963. Since then, many semi-submersibles have been purpose-designed for the drilling industry mobile offshore fleet, the industry quickly accepted the semi-submersible concept and the fleet increased rapidly to 30 units by 1972. Drilling rig construction has occurred in boom periods and therefore batches of drilling rigs have been built. They can be towed into position by a tugboat and anchored, or moved by, the IMO MODU Code is an accredited design and operational guideline for mobile offshore drilling units of the semi-submersible type. These semi-submersible crane vessels consist of two hulls, three columns on each pontoon and an upper hull
11.
Oil platform
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In many cases, the platform contains facilities to house the workforce as well. Depending on the circumstances, the platform may be fixed to the floor, may consist of an artificial island. Remote subsea wells may also be connected to a platform by flow lines and these sub-sea solutions may consist of one or more subsea wells, or of one or more manifold centres for multiple wells. Around 1891, the first submerged oil wells were drilled from platforms built on piles in the waters of the Grand Lake St. Marys in Ohio. The wide but shallow reservoir was built from 1837 to 1845 to provide water to the Miami, around 1896, the first submerged oil wells in salt water were drilled in the portion of the Summerland field extending under the Santa Barbara Channel in California. The wells were drilled from piers extending from land out into the channel, other notable early submerged drilling activities occurred on the Canadian side of Lake Erie since 1913 and Caddo Lake in Louisiana in the 1910s. Shortly thereafter, wells were drilled in tidal zones along the Gulf Coast of Texas, the Goose Creek field near Baytown, Texas is one such example. In the 1920s, drilling was done from concrete platforms in Lake Maracaibo, the oldest offshore well recorded in Infields offshore database is the Bibi Eibat well which came on stream in 1923 in Azerbaijan. Landfill was used to raise shallow portions of the Caspian Sea, in the early 1930s, the Texas Company developed the first mobile steel barges for drilling in the brackish coastal areas of the gulf. In 1937, Pure Oil Company and its partner Superior Oil Company used a platform to develop a field in 14 feet of water, one mile offshore of Calcasieu Parish. In 1946, Magnolia Petroleum Company erected a platform in 18 ft of water,18 miles off the coast of St. Mary Parish. In early 1947, Superior Oil erected a platform in 20 ft of water some 18 miles off Vermilion Parish. In any case, that made Kerr-McGees well the first oil discovery drilled out of sight of land, the British Maunsell Forts constructed during World War II are considered the direct predecessors of modern offshore platforms. Having been pre-constructed in a short time, they were then floated to their location and placed on the shallow bottom of the Thames. Larger lake- and sea-based offshore platforms and drilling rig for oil and these platforms are built on concrete or steel legs, or both, anchored directly onto the seabed, supporting a deck with space for drilling rigs, production facilities and crew quarters. Such platforms are, by virtue of their immobility, designed for long term use. Various types of structure are used, steel jacket, concrete caisson, floating steel, steel jackets are structural sections made of tubular steel members, and are usually piled into the seabed. To see more details regarding Design, construction and installation of such platforms refer to, fixed platforms are economically feasible for installation in water depths up to about 520 m
12.
Royal Dutch Shell
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Royal Dutch Shell plc, commonly known as Shell, is a British–Dutch multinational oil and gas company headquartered in the Netherlands and incorporated in the United Kingdom. It is one of the six oil and gas supermajors and the sixth-largest company in the world measured by 2016 revenues. Shell was first in the 2013 Fortune Global 500 list of the worlds largest companies and it also has renewable energy activities in the form of biofuels and wind. Shell has operations in over 70 countries, produces around 3.7 million barrels of oil equivalent per day and has 44,000 service stations worldwide, as of 31 December 2014, Shell had total proved reserves of 13.7 billion barrels of oil equivalent. Shell Oil Company, its subsidiary in the United States, is one of its largest businesses. Shell holds 50% of Raízen, a joint venture with Cosan, which is the third-largest Brazil-based energy company by revenues, Shell was formed in 1907 through the amalgamation of the Royal Dutch Petroleum Company of the Netherlands and the Shell Transport and Trading Company of the United Kingdom. Shell first entered the industry in 1929. In 1970 Shell acquired the mining company Billiton, which it sold in 1994. In recent decades gas exploration and production has become an important part of Shells business. Shell acquired BG Group in 2016, making it the worlds largest producer of liquefied natural gas, Shell has a primary listing on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE100 Index. It has secondary listings on Euronext Amsterdam and the New York Stock Exchange, as of January 2013, Shells largest shareholder was Capital Research Global Investors with 9. 85% ahead of BlackRock in second with 6. 89%. Shells logo, known as the pecten, is one of the most familiar commercial symbols in the world and it was a move largely driven by the need to compete globally with Standard Oil. The Shell Transport and Trading Company was a British company, founded in 1897 by Marcus Samuel, 1st Viscount Bearsted, and his brother Samuel Samuel. Their father had owned a company in Houndsditch, London. For various reasons, the new firm operated as a company, whereby the merging companies maintained their legal existence. The terms of the merger gave 60 percent ownership of the new group to the Dutch arm and 40 percent to the British, national patriotic sensibilities would not permit a full-scale merger or takeover of either of the two companies. The Dutch company, Koninklijke Nederlandsche Petroleum Maatschappij at The Hague, was in charge of production, the British Anglo-Saxon Petroleum Company was based in London, to direct the transport and storage of the products. During the First World War, Shell was the supplier of fuel to the British Expeditionary Force
13.
Edward Robert Armstrong
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Edward Robert Armstrong was a Canadian born engineer and inventor who in 1927 proposed a series of seadrome floating airport platforms for airplanes to land on and refuel for transatlantic flights. While his original concept was made obsolete by long-range aircraft that did not need such refueling points and he was born in 1876 in Guelph, Ontario, and he moved to the United States and worked in Texas in the early 1900s, developing oil-well-drilling machinery. In 1909 he went to St. Louis, Missouri as an automotive and aviation engineer and he was then promoted to chief of the plant’s mechanical research department. In 1924 he quit DuPont to work full-time on his seadrome project, in 1926 he incorporated the Armstrong Seadrome Development Company, of Wilmington, Delaware. A seadrome was to be a floating steel landing strip, the size of an aircraft carrier and it would rise 70 feet or more above the surface of the ocean by tubular columns that would allow waves to pass underneath. The columns would terminate in ballast tanks 100 feet below the surface, the runway platform would provide a 1,200 feet runway by 200 feet wide with extended midsides to allow for a hotel, restaurant, and other facilities. The plan was to position a series of seadromes across the Atlantic Ocean about 350 miles apart to allow for refueling of airplanes and he had been thinking of the idea as early as 1913. In 1915 he completed the first design, and in 1922 he built a 1/300 scale model, in 1926 he performed a test that he filmed, with scale models of his seadrome and the ocean liner Majestic in a tank of water. He used a fan to create the equivalent of 40-foot waves, in 1927 when the Lindbergh and other transatlantic flights were made, newspapers started running stories of his concept. He had financial backing until The Depression of the 1930s, the last time he made the proposal was in 1943, during World War II. By that time long range aircraft had already designed for the war effort. During the years following the depression, Mr Armstrong made a number of rebids for the program, by WWII, the advent of long range passenger flight made the concept obsolete. However, Mr Armstrongs efforts with DuPont and Sun Ship Building, owned by Sun Oil, led his ideas and basic designs to be used by the oil industry to create the Semi-submersible off shore oil rig
14.
Gulf of Mexico
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The Gulf of Mexico is an ocean basin largely 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 southwest and south by Mexico, and on the southeast by Cuba. The U. S. states of Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas border the Gulf on the north, Atlantic and Pacific coasts, or sometimes the south coast, in juxtaposition to the Great Lakes region being the north coast. One of the seven main areas is the Gulf of Mexico basin. The Gulf of Mexico formed approximately 300 million years ago as a result of plate tectonics, the Gulfs basin is roughly oval and is approximately 810 nautical miles wide and floored by sedimentary rocks and recent sediments. It is connected to part of the Atlantic Ocean through the Florida Straits between the U. S. and Cuba, and with the Caribbean Sea via the Yucatan Channel between Mexico and Cuba, with the narrow connection to the Atlantic, the Gulf experiences very small tidal ranges. The size of the Gulf basin is approximately 1.6 million km2, almost half of the basin is shallow continental shelf waters. The basin contains a volume of roughly 2,500 quadrillion liters, the consensus among geologists who have studied the geology of the Gulf of Mexico, is that prior to the Late Triassic, the Gulf of Mexico did not exist. It was created by the collision of plates that formed Pangea. As interpreted by Roy Van Arsdale and Randel T. Cox, geologists and other Earth scientists agree in general that the present Gulf of Mexico basin originated in Late Triassic time as the result of rifting within Pangea. The rifting was associated with zones of weakness within Pangea, including sutures where the Laurentia, South American, first, there was a Late Triassic-Early Jurassic phase of rifting during which rift valleys formed and filled with continental red beds. Second, as rifting progressed through Early and Middle Jurassic time and it was at this time that tectonics first created a connection to the Pacific Ocean across central Mexico and later eastward to the Atlantic Ocean. This flooded the basin created by rifting and crustal thinning to create the Gulf of Mexico. While the Gulf of Mexico was a basin, the subsiding transitional crust was blanketed by the widespread deposition of Louann Salt. Initially, during the Late Jurassic, continued rifting widened the Gulf of Mexico and progressed to the point that sea-floor spreading, at this point, sufficient circulation with the Atlantic Ocean was established that the deposition of Louann Salt ceased. During the Late Jurassic through Early Cretaceous, the occupied by the Gulf of Mexico experienced a period of cooling. The subsidence was the result of a combination of stretching, cooling. Initially, the combination of stretching and cooling caused about 5–7 km of tectonic subsidence of the central thin transitional
15.
Jackup rig
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A jackup rig or a self-elevating unit is a type of mobile platform that consists of a buoyant hull fitted with a number of movable legs, capable of raising its hull over the surface of the sea. The buoyant hull enables transportation of the unit and all attached machinery to a desired location, once on location the hull is raised to the required elevation above the sea surface supported by the sea bed. The legs of such units may be designed to penetrate the sea bed, may be fitted with enlarged sections or footings, generally jackup rigs are not self-propelled and rely on tugs or heavy lift ships for transportation. Jackup platforms are used as exploratory drilling platforms and offshore and wind farm service platforms, jackup platforms have been the most popular and numerous of various mobile types in existence. The total number of jackup Drilling rigs in operation numbers about 540 at the end of 2013. The first one was designed by R. G. LeTourneau for Zapata Oil, owned by George H. W. Bush, who later became the 41st President of the United States. Jackup rigs are so named because they are self-elevating with three, four, six and even eight movable legs that can be extended above or below the hull. Jackups are towed or moved under self propulsion to the site with the lowered to the water level. The hull is actually a barge that floats on the water’s surface. When the rig reaches the site, the crew jacks the legs downward through the water. This anchors the rig and holds the hull well above the waves, a jackup rig is a floating barge fitted with long support legs that can be raised or lowered. The jackup is maneuvered into location with its legs up and the hull floating on the water, upon arrival at the work location, the legs are jacked down onto the seafloor. Modern jacking systems use a rack and pinion gear arrangement where the gears are driven by hydraulic or electric motors. Jackup rigs can only be placed in shallow waters, generally less than 120 metres of water. However, a class of jackup rigs known as premium or ultra-premium jackups are known to have operational capability in water depths ranging from 150 to 190 meters. This type of rig is used in connection with oil and/or natural gas drilling. There are more jackup rigs in the offshore rig fleet than other type of mobile offshore drilling rig. Other types of offshore rigs include semi-submersibles and drillships, which are ship-shaped vessels with rigs mounted in their center and these rigs drill through holes in the drillship hulls, known as moon pools
16.
Pontoon (boat)
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A pontoon is a flotation device with buoyancy sufficient to float itself as well as a heavy load. A pontoon boat is a boat that relies on pontoons to float. Boats with three pontoons are sometimes called “tri-toons, better tube design has also allowed builders to put ever-increasing amounts of horsepower on the stern. Pontoons may be used on boats, rafts, barges, docks, airboats, hovercrafts, pontoons may support a platform, creating a raft. A raft supporting a house-like structure is a houseboat, a fixed platform can be used as a dock. Common boat designs are a catamaran with two pontoons, or a trimaran with three, pontoons may be simply constructed from sealed cylinders such as pipes or barrels, or fabricated as boxes from metal or concrete. Pontoon boat drafts may be as shallow as eight inches, which risk of running aground. The pontoon effect is when a force applied to the side capsizes a pontoon boat without much warning. Pontoon boats for boating and fishing can be low cost for their capacity. Small inflatable pontoon boats are one or two person, catamaran type boats, designed for leisure and fishing and their pontoons are made out of abrasion resistant PVC and nylon with aluminum, steel and/or plastic frames for support. They are powered with paddles, oars and often with electric trolling motors using deep cycle lead batteries, commonly they are equipped with motor mount, battery storage area, fishing rod holders, canopy, fishfinder mount, small anchor and other required fishing gear. Such boats are suitable for ponds, lakes, rivers and seas during calm weather, however, due to light weight, they are susceptible to waves and windy conditions. Nonetheless, such boats are used even for big game fishing. Pontoon boats are used as small ferries to cross rivers and lakes in many parts of the world. Pontoon ferries may be motorised, such as the Kazungula Ferry across the Zambezi River, or powered by another boat, or pulled by cables. A type of known as the cable ferry pull themselves across a river using a motor or human power applied to the cable. The flotation tubes of RIB are often referred to as pontoons, in Australia and New Zealand, the term pontoon often refers to an anchored raft-like platform used for diving from. Pontoons are located at many beaches and lake shores, but usually only during the summer months, the 1952 invention of the pontoon motorboat in the USA is credited to a farmer who lived on the Horseshoe Chain of Lakes, near Richmond, Minnesota
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Buoyancy
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In science, buoyancy or upthrust, is an upward force exerted by a fluid that opposes the weight of an immersed object. In a column of fluid, pressure increases with depth as a result of the weight of the overlying fluid, thus the pressure at the bottom of a column of fluid is greater than at the top of the column. Similarly, the pressure at the bottom of an object submerged in a fluid is greater than at the top of the object and this pressure difference results in a net upwards force on the object. For this reason, an object whose density is greater than that of the fluid in which it is submerged tends to sink, If the object is either less dense than the liquid or is shaped appropriately, the force can keep the object afloat. This can occur only in a reference frame, which either has a gravitational field or is accelerating due to a force other than gravity defining a downward direction. In a situation of fluid statics, the net upward force is equal to the magnitude of the weight of fluid displaced by the body. The center of buoyancy of an object is the centroid of the volume of fluid. Archimedes principle is named after Archimedes of Syracuse, who first discovered this law in 212 B. C, more tersely, Buoyancy = weight of displaced fluid. The weight of the fluid is directly proportional to the volume of the displaced fluid. Thus, among completely submerged objects with equal masses, objects with greater volume have greater buoyancy and this is also known as upthrust. Suppose a rocks weight is measured as 10 newtons when suspended by a string in a vacuum with gravity acting upon it, suppose that when the rock is lowered into water, it displaces water of weight 3 newtons. The force it exerts on the string from which it hangs would be 10 newtons minus the 3 newtons of buoyancy force,10 −3 =7 newtons. Buoyancy reduces the apparent weight of objects that have sunk completely to the sea floor and it is generally easier to lift an object up through the water than it is to pull it out of the water. The density of the object relative to the density of the fluid can easily be calculated without measuring any volumes. Density of object density of fluid = weight weight − apparent immersed weight Example, If you drop wood into water, Example, A helium balloon in a moving car. During a period of increasing speed, the air mass inside the car moves in the direction opposite to the cars acceleration, the balloon is also pulled this way. However, because the balloon is buoyant relative to the air, it ends up being pushed out of the way, If the car slows down, the same balloon will begin to drift backward. For the same reason, as the car goes round a curve and this is the equation to calculate the pressure inside a fluid in equilibrium
18.
Mighty Servant 3
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Mighty Servant 3 is a 27, 000-ton semi-submersible heavy lift ship. Most of the cargo transported by Mighty Servant 3 are oil platforms, when loading its mammoth burdens, it takes on thousands of gallons of water into ballast tanks, which causes the cargo deck to submerge. After the cargo is floated into position, the ballast tanks are emptied with pumps, in 2010, Mighty Servant 3 was outfitted with oil skimming equipment and used in the cleanup of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. On 6 December 2006, Mighty Servant 3 sank in 62 m of water near the port of Luanda, Angola, during submerging to unload cargo, the ship developed a list and continued to submerge beyond design limits. There were no casualties, nor damage to the transported platform, after 5 months of resting on the seabed, it was salvaged by Dutch salvage-company Smit International and handed back to its owners on 26 May 2007. To pull the vessel from the seabed, the 1,200 tonne sheerleg Taklift 7 was used in combination with pumping pressurized air into the compartments of Mighty Servant 3. It was transported to Cape Town for repairs, arriving on Sunday 17 June 2007, in August 2009, after an extensive rebuild, in Zwolle by Wärtsilä, she was returned to service. Mighty Servant 1 Mighty Servant 2 MV Blue Marlin Dockwise Shipping B. V. Smit International press release about salvage of Mighty Servant 32006 photo of Mighty Servant 3 sinking after accident
19.
Cape Town
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Cape Town is a coastal city in South Africa. It is the second-most populous urban area in South Africa after Johannesburg and it is also the capital and primate city of the Western Cape province. As the seat of the Parliament of South Africa, it is also the capital of the country. It forms part of the City of Cape Town metropolitan municipality, the city is famous for its harbour, for its natural setting in the Cape Floristic Region, and for such well-known landmarks as Table Mountain and Cape Point. As of 2014, it is the 10th most populous city in Africa and it is one of the most multicultural cities in the world, reflecting its role as a major destination for immigrants and expatriates to South Africa. The city was named the World Design Capital for 2014 by the International Council of Societies of Industrial Design, in 2014, Cape Town was named the best place in the world to visit by both the American New York Times and the British Daily Telegraph. Located on the shore of Table Bay, Cape Town was first developed by the Dutch East India Company as a station for Dutch ships sailing to East Africa, India. Jan van Riebeecks arrival on 6 April 1652 established the first permanent European settlement in South Africa, Cape Town quickly outgrew its original purpose as the first European outpost at the Castle of Good Hope, becoming the economic and cultural hub of the Cape Colony. Until the Witwatersrand Gold Rush and the development of Johannesburg, Cape Town was the largest city in South Africa, the earliest known remnants in the region were found at Peers Cave in Fish Hoek and date to between 15,000 and 12,000 years ago. It was later renamed by John II of Portugal as Cape of Good Hope because of the optimism engendered by the opening of a sea route to India. Vasco da Gama recorded a sighting of the Cape of Good Hope in 1497, in the late 16th century, Portuguese, French, Danish, Dutch and English but mainly Portuguese ships regularly stopped over in Table Bay en route to the Indies. They traded tobacco, copper and iron with the Khoikhoi in exchange for fresh meat, the settlement grew slowly during this period, as it was hard to find adequate labour. This labour shortage prompted the authorities to import slaves from Indonesia, many of these became ancestors of the first Cape Coloured communities. Some of these, including grapes, cereals, ground nuts, potatoes, apples and citrus, had an important, the Dutch Republic being transformed in Revolutionary Frances vassal Batavian Republic, Great Britain moved to take control of its colonies. Britain captured Cape Town in 1795, but the Cape was returned to the Dutch by treaty in 1803, British forces occupied the Cape again in 1806 following the Battle of Blaauwberg. In the Anglo-Dutch Treaty of 1814, Cape Town was permanently ceded to Britain and it became the capital of the newly formed Cape Colony, whose territory expanded very substantially through the 1800s. With expansion came calls for independence from Britain, with the Cape attaining its own parliament. Suffrage was established according to the non-racial, but sexist Cape Qualified Franchise, the discovery of diamonds in Griqualand West in 1867, and the Witwatersrand Gold Rush in 1886, prompted a flood of immigrants to South Africa
20.
Tugboat
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A tug is a boat or ship that maneuvers vessels by pushing or towing them. Tugboats are powerful for their size and strongly built, and some are ocean-going, some tugboats serve as icebreakers or salvage boats. Early tugboats had steam engines, but today most have diesel engines, many tugboats have firefighting monitors, allowing them to assist in firefighting, especially in harbors. Seagoing tugs fall into four categories, The standard seagoing tug with model bow that tows its payload on a hawser. The notch tug which can be secured in a notch at the stern of a specially designed barge and this configuration is dangerous to use with a barge which is in ballast or in a head- or following sea. Therefore, notch tugs are usually built with a towing winch and these units stay combined under virtually any sea conditions and the tugs usually have poor sea-keeping designs for navigation without their barges attached. Vessels in this category are considered to be ships rather than tugboats. These vessels must show navigation lights compliant with those required of ships rather than required of tugboats. Articulated tug and barge units also utilize mechanical means to connect to their barges, the tug slips into a notch in the stern and is attached by a hinged connection. ATBs generally utilize Intercon and Bludworth connecting systems, aTBs are generally staffed as a large tugboat, with between seven and nine crew members. The typical American ATB operating on the east coast customarily displays navigational lights of a towing vessel pushing ahead, compared to seagoing tugboats, harbour tugboats are generally smaller and their width-to-length ratio is often higher, due to the need for a lower draught. In smaller harbours these are also termed lunch bucket boats, because they are only manned when needed and only at a minimum. The number of tugboats in a harbour varies with the harbour infrastructure, things to take into consideration includes ships with/without bow thrusters and forces like wind, current and waves and types of ship. River tugs are also referred to as towboats or pushboats and their hull designs would make open ocean operation dangerous. River tugs usually do not have any significant hawser or winch and their hulls feature a flat front or bow to line up with the rectangular stern of the barge, often with large pushing knees. Tugboat engines typically produce 500 to 2,500 kW, for safety, tugboats engines often feature two of each critical part for redundancy. A tugboats power is stated by its engines horsepower and its overall bollard pull. The largest commercial harbour tugboats in the 2000s-2010s, used for towing container ships or similar, had around 60-65 tons of bollard pull, Tugboats are highly maneuverable, and various propulsion systems have been developed to increase maneuverability and increase safety
21.
Azimuth thruster
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An azimuth thruster is a configuration of marine propellers placed in pods that can be rotated to any horizontal angle, making a rudder unnecessary. These give ships better maneuverability than a propeller and rudder system. There are two variants, based on the location of the motor, Mechanical transmission, which connects a motor inside the ship to the outboard unit by gearing. The motor may be diesel or diesel-electric, depending on the shaft arrangement, mechanical azimuth thrusters are divided into L-drive and Z-drive. An L-drive thruster has an input shaft and a horizontal output shaft with one right-angle gear. A Z-drive thruster has an input shaft, a vertical shaft in the rotating column. Electrical transmission, more commonly called pods, where a motor is fitted in the pod itself. The electricity is produced by an engine, usually diesel or gas turbine. Invented in 1955 by Friedrich W. Pleuger and Friedrich Busmann, the most powerful podded thrusters in use are the four 21.5 MW Rolls-Royce Mermaid units fitted to Queen Mary 2. Mechanical azimuth thrusters can be fixed installed, retractable or underwater-mountable and they may have fixed pitch propellers or controllable pitch propellers. Fixed installed thrusters are used for tugboats, ferries and supply-boats, retractable thrusters are used as auxiliary propulsion for dynamically positioned vessels and take-home propulsion for military vessels. Underwater-mountable thrusters are used as dynamic positioning propulsion for very large such as semi-submersible drilling rigs. Primary advantages are electrical efficiency, better use of ship space, ships with azimuth thrusters do not need tugboats to dock, though they still require tugs to maneuver in difficult places. English inventor Francis Ronalds described what he called a “Propelling Rudder” in 1859 that combined the propulsion and steering mechanisms of a boat in a single apparatus. The propeller was placed in a frame having a profile similar to a rudder. The modern azimuth thruster using the Z-drive transmission was invented in 1950 by Joseph Becker, the founder of Schottel in Germany, Becker was awarded the 2004 Elmer A. This kind of propulsion was first patented in 1955 by Pleuger, in the late 1980s, ABB Group developed the Azipod thruster with the motor located in the pod itself
22.
Dynamic positioning
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Dynamic positioning is a computer-controlled system to automatically maintain a vessels position and heading by using its own propellers and thrusters. Examples of vessel types that employ DP include, but are not limited to, ships and semi-submersible mobile offshore drilling units, oceanographic research vessels and cruise ships. The computer program contains a model of the vessel that includes information pertaining to the wind and current drag of the vessel. This knowledge, combined with the information, allows the computer to calculate the required steering angle. This allows operations at sea where mooring or anchoring is not feasible due to deep water, Dynamic positioning may either be absolute in that the position is locked to a fixed point over the bottom, or relative to a moving object like another ship or an underwater vehicle. One may also position the ship at an angle towards wind, waves and current. Dynamic positioning is used by much of the oil industry, for example in the North Sea, Persian Gulf, Gulf of Mexico, West Africa. There are currently more than 1800 DP ships, Dynamic positioning started in the 1960s for offshore drilling. With drilling moving into deeper waters, Jack-up barges could not be used any more. In 1961 the drillship Cuss 1 was fitted with four steerable propellers and it was possible to keep the ship in position above the well off La Jolla, California, at a depth of 948 meters. After this, off the coast of Guadalupe, Mexico, five holes were drilled, the ships position was determined by radar ranging to buoys and sonar ranging from subsea beacons. While the first DP ships had analogue controllers and lacked redundancy, besides that, DP nowadays is not only used in the oil industry, but also on various other types of ships. In addition, DP is not limited to maintaining a fixed position any more, one of the possibilities is sailing an exact track, useful for cablelay, pipelay, survey and other tasks. Other methods of position-keeping are the use of an anchor spread, all have their own advantages and disadvantages. Although all methods have their own advantages, dynamic positioning has made operations possible that were not feasible before. The costs are falling due to newer and cheaper technologies, and the advantages are becoming more compelling as offshore work enters ever deeper water, with container operations, crowded ports can be made more efficient by quicker and more accurate berthing techniques. Cruise ship operations benefit from faster berthing and non-anchored moorings off beaches or inaccessible ports. e and it can move in any of six axes. A ship that is to be used for DP requires, to position and heading, first of all the position
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International Maritime Organization
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The IMO was established in Geneva in 1948 and came into force ten years later, meeting for the first time in 1959. Headquartered in London, United Kingdom, the IMO has 172 Member States, IMO is governed by an assembly of members and is financially administered by a council of members elected from the assembly. The work of IMO is conducted through five committees and these are supported by technical subcommittees, other UN organisations may observe the proceedings of the IMO. Observer status is granted to qualified non-governmental organisations, IMO is supported by a permanent secretariat of employees who are representative of the organisations members. Hitherto such international conventions had been initiated piecemeal, notably the Safety of Life at Sea Convention, the first meetings of the newly formed IMCO were held in London in 1959. More recently SOLAS has been amended to bring a focus on maritime security through the International Ship. The IMO has also increased its focus on air emissions from ships, in January 1959, IMO began to maintain and promote the 1954 OILPOL Convention. Under the guidance of IMO, the convention was amended in 1962,1969, as oil trade and industry developed, many people in the industry began to recognize a need for further improvements in regards to oil pollution prevention at sea. Among other things, the accident forced the industry and public to question the efficacy of standing regulations. This incident prompted a series of new conventions, IMO held an emergency session of its Council to deal with the need to readdress regulations pertaining to maritime pollution. In 1969, the IMO Assembly decided to host a gathering in 1973 dedicated to this issue. The goal at hand was to develop an international agreement for controlling general environmental contamination by ships out at sea. During the next few years IMO brought to the forefront a series of measures designed to prevent large ship accidents and it also detailed how to deal with the environmental threat caused by routine ship duties such as the cleaning of oil cargo tanks or the disposal of engine room wastes. Interestingly enough in terms of tonnage the afore-mentioned was a problem than accidental pollution. The most significant thing to come out of conference was the International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships,1973. It covers not only accidental and operational oil pollution but also different types of pollution by chemicals, goods in packaged form, sewage, garbage, the original MARPOL was signed on 17 February 1973, but did not come into force due to lack of ratifications. The current convention is a combination of 1973 Convention and the 1978 Protocol and it entered into force on 2 October 1983. As of May 2013,152 states, representing 99.2 per cent of the worlds shipping tonnage, are involved in the convention, in 1983 the IMO established the World Maritime University in Malmö, Sweden
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Elbe
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The Elbe is one of the major rivers of Central Europe. It rises in the Krkonoše Mountains of the northern Czech Republic before traversing much of Bohemia, then Germany and its total length is 1,094 kilometres. The Elbes major tributaries include the rivers Vltava, Saale, Havel, Mulde, Schwarze Elster, the Elbe river basin, comprising the Elbe and its tributaries, has a catchment area of 148,268 square kilometres, the fourth largest in Europe. The basin spans four countries, with its largest parts in Germany, much smaller parts lie in Austria and Poland. The basin is inhabited by 24.5 million people, the Elbe rises at an elevation of about 1,400 metres in the Krkonoše on the northwest borders of the Czech Republic near Labská bouda. Of the numerous small streams whose waters compose the infant river, here the Elbe enters the vast vale named Polabí, and continues on southwards through Hradec Králové and then to Pardubice, where it turns sharply to the west. At Kolín some 43 kilometres further on, it bends gradually towards the north-west, at the village of Káraný, a little above Brandýs nad Labem, it picks up the Jizera. At Mělník its stream is more than doubled in volume by the Vltava, or Moldau, upstream from the confluence the Vltava is in fact much longer, and has a greater discharge and a larger drainage basin. Some distance lower down, at Litoměřice, the waters of the Elbe are tinted by the reddish Ohře, in its northern section both banks of the Elbe are characterised by flat, very fertile marshlands, former flood plains of the Elbe now diked. At Magdeburg there is a viaduct, the Magdeburg Water Bridge, from the sluice of Geesthacht on downstream the Elbe is subject to the tides, the tidal Elbe section is called the Low Elbe. Within the city-state the Unterelbe has a number of streams, such as Dove Elbe, Gose Elbe, Köhlbrand, Northern Elbe, Reiherstieg. Some of which have been disconnected for vessels from the stream by dikes. In 1390 the Gose Elbe was separated from the stream by a dike connecting the two then-islands of Kirchwerder and Neuengamme. The Dove Elbe was diked off in 1437/38 at Gammer Ort and these hydraulic engineering works were carried out to protect marshlands from inundation, and to improve the water supply of the Port of Hamburg. The Northern Elbe passes the Elbe Philharmonic Hall and is then crossed under by the old Elbe Tunnel, a bit more downstream the Low Elbes two main anabranches Northern Elbe and the Köhlbrand reunite south of Altona-Altstadt, a locality of Hamburg. Right after both anabranches reunited the Low Elbe is passed under by the New Elbe Tunnel, the last structural road link crossing the river before the North Sea. At the bay Mühlenberger Loch in Hamburg at kilometre 634, the Northern Elbe and the Southern Elbe used to reunite, leaving the city-state the Lower Elbe then passes between Holstein and the Elbe-Weser Triangle with Stade until it flows into the North Sea at Cuxhaven. Near its mouth it passes the entrance to the Kiel Canal at Brunsbüttel before it debouches into the North Sea, the Elbe has been navigable by commercial vessels since 1842, and provides important trade links as far inland as Prague
25.
Petrobras
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Petróleo Brasileiro S. A. — Petrobras, more commonly known as simply Petrobras, is a semi-public Brazilian multinational corporation in the petroleum industry headquartered in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The companys name translates to Brazilian Petroleum Corporation — Petrobras, the company was ranked #58 in the most recent Fortune Global 500 list. A. However, Brazil represented 92% of Petrobras worldwide production in 2014 and accounted for 97% of Petrobras worldwide reserves on 31 December 2014. As of 31 December 2014, the company had 8,112.8 million barrels of oil equivalent of proved developed reserves and 4,599.7 million barrels of oil equivalent of proved undeveloped reserves in Brazil. Of these reserves,62. 7% were located in the offshore Campos Basin, the largest growth prospect for the company is the Lula oil field in the Santos Basin. In 2015, the company produced 2.284 million barrels of oil equivalent per day, of which 89% was petroleum, reserves held outside of Brazil accounted for 8. 4% of production in 2014. The majority of reserves are in South America, the company has assets in Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Venezuela, Paraguay. Petrobras owns refineries in Texas, Okinawa, Japan, and Bahía Blanca, the company also owns exploration blocks in the Gulf of Mexico and through joint ventures has production in Nigeria, Benin, Gabon, and Namibia. The privately held shares are traded on BM&F Bovespa, where they are part of the Ibovespa index, Petrobras is a major supporter of the arts in Brazil. Petrobras was created in 1953 under the government of Brazilian president Getúlio Vargas with the slogan The Oil is Ours and was given a monopoly in Brazil. In 1953, Brazil only produced 2,700 barrels of oil per day, in 1967, the company established a Petrobras Quimica S. A, subsidiary focused on petrochemicals and the conversion of naphtha into ethene. Petrobras began processing oil shale in 1953, developing Petrosix technology for extracting oil from oil shale, an industrial-size retort began processing shale in the 1990s. In 2006, Petrobras claimed that this industrial retort had a capacity to process 260 tonnes/hour of oil shale. In 1994, Petrobras placed into service Petrobras 36, the worlds largest oil platform, the platform sank after an explosion in 2001 and was a complete loss. In 1997, the government approved Law N.9.478, in 1999, the National Petroleum Agency signed agreements with other companies, officially ending the companys monopoly. In 2000, Petrobras achieved a record for oil exploration in deep waters. In 2002, Petrobras acquired the Argentine company Perez Companc Energía from the Perez Companc family and its foundation and this acquisition included assets in Argentina, Brazil, Venezuela, Bolivia, Peru, and Ecuador. The company had 1.1 billion barrels of oil reserves
26.
Offshore construction
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Offshore construction is the installation of structures and facilities in a marine environment, usually for the production and transmission of electricity, oil, gas and other resources. Construction and pre-commissioning is typically performed as much as possible onshore, to optimize the costs and risks of installing large offshore platforms, different construction strategies have been developed. One strategy is to construct the offshore facility onshore. Bottom founded structure are lowered to the seabed by de-ballasting, whilst floating structures are held in position with substantial mooring systems. The size of offshore lifts can be reduced by making the construction modular, with each module being constructed onshore and then lifted using a crane vessel into place onto the platform. A number of large crane vessels were built in the 1970s which allow very large single modules weighing up to 14,000 tonnes to be fabricated. Specialist floating hotel vessels known as flotels are used to accommodate workers during the construction and this is a high cost activity due to the limited space and access to materials. Oil platforms are key fixed installations from which drilling and production activity is carried out, drilling rigs are either floating vessels for deeper water or jack-up designs which are a barge with liftable legs. Both of these types of vessel are constructed in marine yards but are involved during the construction phase to pre-drill some production wells. Other key factors in construction are the weather window which defines periods of relatively light weather during which continuous construction or other offshore activity can take place. Safety is another key construction parameter, the main hazard obviously being a fall into the sea from which speedy recovery in cold waters is essential, the main types of vessels used for pipe laying are the Derrick Barge, the Pipelay Barge and the Derrick/Lay barge combination. Diving bells in offshore construction are used in water depths greater than 120 feet, less than that. The basket is lowered to the level, then the divers enter the water from it to a maximum of 120 feet. Bells can go to 1,500 feet, but are used at 400 to 800 feet. Floating oil and gas platforms – semi-submersibles, spars, TLPs, FPSOs, offshore wind power Submarine pipelines Brief on Shallow Water Pipelay Operations
27.
Heerema Marine Contractors
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Heerema Marine Contractors is a contractor headquartered in the Netherlands most notable for operation of three of the largest crane vessels in the offshore industry. Heerema Marine Contractors was formed in 1948 as a construction company providing oilfield platforms in Venezuela. In the 1960s the company focused on the North Sea offshore developments, the company developed crane vessels to lift large offshore platforms and modules. The ship shaped crane vessel Challenger was equipped to lift 800 t, the need for large stable crane vessels to operate in the North Sea environment lead the company to develop the first large semi-submersible crane vessels. In 1978, HMC commissioned Mitsui to construct the two sister semi-submersible crane vessels, DCV Balder and SSCV Hermod and these vessel could lift 5,400 tonnes with the twin cranes, and were later upgraded to 8,200 tonnes. In 1988 HMC formed a joint venture with McDermott called HeereMac, bullwinkle Perdido Spar Thunder Horse PDQ Peregrino
28.
Crane vessel
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A crane vessel, crane ship or floating crane is a ship with a crane specialized in lifting heavy loads. The largest crane vessels are used for offshore construction, conventional monohulls are used, but the largest crane vessels are often catamaran or semi-submersible types as they have increased stability. On a sheerleg crane, the crane is fixed and cannot rotate, in medieval Europe, crane vessels which could be flexibly deployed in the whole port basin were introduced as early as the 14th century. During the age of sail, the hulk was used extensively as a floating crane for tasks that required heavy lift. At the time, the heaviest single components of ships were the main masts, and sheer hulks were essential for removing and replacing them, in 1920, the 1898-built battleship USS Kearsarge was converted to a crane ship when a crane with a capacity of 250 tons was installed. Later it was renamed Crane Ship No.1 and it was used, amongst other things, to place guns and other heavy items on other battleships under construction. Another remarkable feat was the raising of the submarine USS Squalus in 1939, in 1942, the crane ships a. k. a. Heavy Lift Ships SS Empire Elgar, SS Empire Bard, and SS Empire Purcell were sent to the Russian Arctic ports of Archangel and their role was to enable the unloading of the Arctic convoys where port installations were either destroyed by German bombers or were non existent. In 1949, J. Ray McDermott had Derrick Barge Four built, the arrival of this type of vessel changed the direction of the offshore construction industry. Instead of constructing oil platforms in parts, jackets and decks could be built onshore as modules, for use in the shallow part of the Gulf of Mexico, the cradle of the offshore industry, these barges sufficed. In 1963, Heerema converted a Norwegian tanker, Sunnaas, into a vessel with a capacity of 300 tons. This type of vessel was better adapted to the harsh environment of the North Sea. In 1978, Heerema had two semi-submersible crane vessels built, Hermod and Balder, each with one 2,000 ton, later both were upgraded to a higher capacity. This type of vessel was much less sensitive to sea swell. The high stability also allowed for heavier lifts than was possible with a monohull, the larger capacity of the cranes reduced the installation time of a platform from a whole season to a few weeks. Inspired by this success similar vessels were built, in 1985 DB-102 was launched for McDermott, with two cranes with a capacity of 6,000 tons each. Micoperi had M7000 built in 1986 with two cranes of 7,000 tons each, however, due to a oil glut in the mid 1980s, the boom in the offshore industry was over, resulting in collaborations. In 1988, a joint venture between Heerema and McDermott was formed, HeereMac, in 1990 Micoperi had to apply for bankruptcy
29.
DCV Balder
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DCV Balder is a Deepwater Construction Vessel operated by Heerema Marine Contractors. The Balder was constructed in 1978 as semi-submersible crane vessel by Mitsui Engineering & Shipbuilding Co. Ltd, Balder and sister vessel, Hermod were the worlds first semi-submersible crane vessels. In the early 1980s these vessels set several records while operating in the North Sea. Conversion to a DCV was carried out in 2001 by Verolme Botlek BV in the Netherlands, the hull consists of two floaters with three columns each. The transit draught of 12 meters is normally ballasted down to 25 meters for lifting operations, with the floaters are well-submerged, reducing the effect of waves and it is powered by seven 3,500 kW azimuth thrusters and two propellers. There is accommodation for 350 persons, in the 2001 conversion, it was fitted with seven thrusters and a J-lay system. The 98 m J-Lay tower, designed and constructed by Huisman Itrec, is capable of laying pipe in water depths to 3,000 m, Balder was also equipped with class III Dynamic Positioning system and a Mooring Line Deployment winch. The winch is the largest in the world, with a diameter of 10.5 meters, originally the starboard-side crane was rated at 3000 short ton and the port-side at 2000 short ton. In 1984, the capacities were upgraded to 4000 and 3000 short tons respectively in a fixed mode. To accommodate the J-Lay tower, the crane jib was converted to a fly jib in 2001. In 1978 Occidental’s Piper Alpha was the first platform installation with a Semi Submersible Crane Vessel and it was a British platform that blew out and burned to the water, killing 167 of its crew. In 2005 the worlds largest semi-submersible platform, BPs Thunder Horse, was installed, later in the year, Balder assisted in righting Thunder Horse, found listing dramatically after Hurricane Dennis. In 2006 it installed BP’s Mardi Gras Atlantis gas export pipeline in a record breaking water depth of 2220 meters. In 2007 it moored the Independence Hub Facility in a record breaking water depth of 2438 m, with a world record for the deepest flow line installation of 2743 m
30.
McDermott International
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McDermott International is an American multinational engineering, procurement, construction and installation company with operations in the Americas, Middle East, the Caspian Sea and the Pacific Rim. It is incorporated in Panama and headquartered in Houston, Texas,1923, Ralph Thomas McDermott established J. Ray McDermott & Company Incorporated at the age of 24 upon receipt of a contract to build 50 wooden drilling rigs for a wildcatter in Luling, Texas. Knowing he could benefit from his fathers experience in the lumber and oilfield construction businesses, Ralph made John Raymond McDermott a partner. 1930, Expanded the business from its headquarters in Eastland, Texas, to Luling, Texas. 1932, Moved the company to Houston, Texas, with the oil boom. Provided different services to the oil industry through three McDermott family-owned businesses, J. Ray McDermott & Co, elmax Construction, and Stall & McDermott. 1937, Hired the company’s first construction crew, a team of six, opened a New Orleans, Louisiana, office. 1938, Introduced the first use of floating drilling equipment in low-lying marshlands of Texas, mcMullen Dredging Company and established it as the Olsen Dredging Company. 1946, Reorganized the multiple McDermott family business operations into one,1947, Designed and installed the first fixed platform made of steel out-of-sight-of-land, in 20 feet of water in the Gulf of Mexico for Superior Oil. Established a contracting division, which was the major operating segment during the early years,1949, Commissioned construction of the first vessel designed specifically for offshore work. The company’s Oil Division was organized. S. -based government contracting services company Babcock & Wilcox and its related other domestic companies. The oil & gas services company, J. Ray McDermott, discontinued use of the J. Ray McDermott brand, the company is led by Chairman, President and CEO David Dickson
31.
Saipem
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Saipem S. p. A. is an Italian oil and gas industry contractor. It is a subsidiary of Italian energy company Eni, which owns approximately 30% of Saipems shares, Saipem has been contracted for designing and constructing several pipelines, including Blue Stream, Greenstream, Nord Stream and South Stream. Saipem was founded in 1957 as a provider for the Eni group, through the merger of Snam Montaggi. In 1960s it started providing services outside the Eni group, at first, Saipem specialized in onshore pipelaying, plant construction and drillin. In the early 1960s it expanded to offshore operations, Offshore operations started in the Mediterranean and were expanded to the North Sea in 1972. Since 1984, Saipem is listed at the Milan Stock Exchange, in 2001, Saipem started a number of acquisitions, culminating in the acquisition of Bouygues Offshore s. a. in 2002. The company has a number of contracts and works with most major NOCs including Saudi Aramco, ADNOC. In 2008, Saipem was included in Global 100 - Most Sustainable Corporations in the World, Saipem operates a unit in Nigeria. In 2010, Saipem agreed to pay a penalty of US$30 million to settle a Nigerian investigation into a case involving the construction of Nigeria LNG facilities. Saipem is also under trial in Italy over charges relating to the same case, on 8 February 2015, Saipem won a $1.8 billion contract to engineer and construct two pipelines at the Kashagan field project in the Caspian Sea. S. A. The group headed by Saipem S. p. A. includes approximately 90 companies and consortia, chairman of the company is Paolo Andrea Colombo and CEO is Stefano Cao. Saipem 7000, second largest heavy lift vessel in the world, Saipem 3000 Castoro Sei Castotorone Saipem FDS Saipem 10000 Scarabeo 9 Scarabeo 8 Castoro Due Castoro Otto List of Italian companies List of oilfield service companies Paul H
32.
SSCV Thialf
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SSCV Thialf is a semi-submersible crane vessel operated by Heerema Marine Contractors, and it is the largest crane vessel in the world. The ship was constructed in 1985 as DB-102 for McDermott International by Mitsui Engineering & Shipbuilding Co. Ltd, in 1997, it was taken over by Heerema Marine Contractors after discontinuation of their joint venture with McDermott, HeereMac, and renamed Thialf. Thialf has two cranes with a maximum lifting capacity of 14,200 metric tons, making it the largest crane vessel in the world. But has lower height lifting capabilities than its competitor Saipem 7000 and it is equipped with a class III dynamic positioning system. Propulsion and position keeping is by six 5,500 kW retractable azimuthing thrusters, for shallow waters there are 12 Flipper Delta anchors,22.5 t, with 2,500 meter,80 mm mooring wire. The hull consists of two pontoons with four columns each, transit draught is about 12 metres. For lifting operations it will normally be ballasted down to 26.6 m and this way the pontoons are well submerged to reduce the effect of waves and swell. It is able to accommodate 736 people, lightship weight is 72,484 t Installing the pylon of the Erasmus Bridge in 1995. Decommissioning of the Brent Spar in 1998, in 2000 it set a world record of 11,883 t by lifting Shells Shearwater topsides, beaten by Saipem 7000 in 2004 with the Sabratha deck lifting of 12,150 t. In 2004 it installed the topsides on BPs Holstein, at the time the worlds largest spar, the lift was a record for the Gulf of Mexico,7,810 t. The actual record for Gulf of Mexico is now retained by the Saipem 7000 with the 9,521 t of PEMEX PB-KU-A2 deck installed in March 2007. In 2005 it installed the heaviest single piece foundation piles,2.74 meters diameter x 190 meters long, weighing 818 t each for Chevrons Benguela Belize compliant tower, heeremas Thialf page offshore-vessels. net/thialf Current position and photos of SSCV Thialf at Digital-Seas. com
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Saipem 7000
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Saipem 7000 is the worlds second largest crane vessel, after the Thialf. The crane radius of the Saipem 7000 grants a lifting capability of 14,000 tonnes at 42 meters while the Thialf can lift 14,200 tonnes at 31.2 meters and it is owned by the oil and gas industry contractor Saipem S. p. A. It would also be able to support the completion of the platform by providing hotel. Saturation Diving facilities would support subsea connection work, the vessels size and semi-submersible form would allow it to operate in worse weather conditions than smaller and conventionally shaped vessels. The huge cost of a vessel of this size would be offset by the cost, other savings in the installation of the jackets could also be made. Heavy lift The Saipem 7000 has two Amhoist model S7000 fully revolving cranes, each has a 140-metre-long boom fitted with 4 hooks. Each crane is capable of lifting up to 7,000 tonnes at 40 m lift radius using the main hook, the auxiliary hook capacities are 1st Auxiliary 2,500 tonnes at 75 m radius and 2nd Auxiliary 900 tonnes at 115 m. The whip hook has a capacity of 120 tonnes at 150 m, the 2nd Auxiliary hook can be deployed to a water depth of 450 m. The two cranes are capable of a lift of 14,000 tonnes. Each crane was fitted with 15,600 hp engines to power the boom and load hoists,9 tugger lines, the cranes use 48 miles of wire rope of various diameters. Ballast system The S7000 was fitted with two ballast systems, A conventional pumped system which could transfer up to 24,000 tonnes of water per hour using 4 pumps and a free flooding system. The free flooding system used 2 m diameter valves to open certain compartments to the sea thus trimming or heeling the vessel and this allows the vessel to lift cargoes from barges much faster than if just the crane hoists are used. Power system The vessels main power is provided by eight 12-cylinder 8400 hp diesel engines built by Grandi Motori Trieste a former Fincantieri company, later Grandi Motori was purchased by the Finnish Wärtsilä. They provide up to 47,000 kW of electric power at 10,000 V60 Hz for propulsion, Auxiliary power is provided by two 6-cylinder 4,200 hp GMT diesel engines. There is also an emergency generator, total power that can be supplied is 57,000 kilowatts. Mooring system The vessel was supplied with 16 anchor lines,4 at each corner, each line consists of 3350 m of 96 mm wire rope,50 m of 92 mm chain and a 40-tonne Norshore Mark 3 anchor. Each line has its own 1,350 kilowatts single drum winch, the mooring system can be used in water depths of up to 450 m. Saipem 7000 is also equipped with two anchor windlasses equipped with 550m of 130mm chain and 35 tonne anchor, thrusters The vessel was fitted with 12 thrusters—6 on each hull
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Diving support vessel
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A diving support vessel is a ship that is used as a floating base for professional diving projects. Until that point, most diving operations were from mobile oil drilling platforms, pipe-lay, the diving system tended to be modularised and craned on and off the vessels as a package. However, equipment fails or gets damaged, and there was an if not continuous need for diving operations in. The solution was to put diving packages on ships, furthermore, seabed operations usually entailed the raising and lowering of heavy equipment, and most such vessels were not equipped for this task. This is when the commercial diving support vessel emerged. These were often built from scratch or heavily converted pipe carriers or other utility ships, saturation diving system - For diving operations below 50m, a mixture of helium and oxygen is required to eliminate the narcotic effect of nitrogen under pressure. For extended diving operations at depth, saturation diving is the preferred approach, a saturation system would be installed within the ship. There are a number of systems for the saturation system on a Diving Support Vessel, usually including a Remotely Operated Vehicle ROV. Most of the currently in the North Sea have been built in the 1980s. The semi-submersible fleet, the Uncle John and similar, have proven to be too expensive to maintain, therefore, most existing designs are monohull vessels with either a one or a twin bell dive system. There has been innovation since the 1980s. However, driven by oil prices since 2004, the market for subsea developments in the North Sea has grown significantly. This has led to a scarcity of Diving Support Vessels and have driven the price up, thus, contractors have ordered a number of newbuild vessels which are expected to enter the market in 2008
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Iolair
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Iolair is a specialised semi-submersible offshore platform designed for BP to support and service oil platforms in the North Sea and served as an emergency support vessel in the Forties Oil Field. Since 2000 she has been working in the Bay of Campeche, Mexico as an offshore construction, iolair is a self-propelled, twin hull, vessel and operates as a dynamically positioned construction support vessel. The vessel can operate up to a depth of 488 metres, is 102 metres long and 51 metres wide. This unique vessel did not start as an ESV, but rather as the concept of a maintenance and it was proposed for the Forties oil field, jointly owned by British National Oil Corporation and operated by BP Petroleum Development Company Ltd in the North Sea. A particular feature of the design by the Naval Architects was that there was no cross-bracing between the pontoons, instead, the platform was given extra strength by a box-girder construction and diagonal bracing was arranged from the centre of the platform to the pontoons. This arrangement remained unchanged to the build completion and offered exceptional speed when the vessel was de-ballasted on the surface. The intention was to achieve a rapid response to emergencies, wherever they might be experienced in the North Sea, all were still featured in the eventual design but had been enhanced with other features and sophistication much of which was to support the emergency role. ESV incorporated novelty and ideas that were ahead of their time. Indeed, part of the brief was that she should still be modern ten years after entering service, the saturation diving system was equipped with an advanced launch and recovery system. She was built by Scott Lithgow in Port Glasgow, and launched on 6 April 1981, in her early years, she was based in the BP Forties Oil Field. In 1995, she was sold to U. S. drilling company Reading & Bates and she was to be converted to a workover/well intervention vessel and was stationed West of Shetland. The modifications included removal of some of the top structures, removal of the systems, closing of the dive tube. However the intended conversion was never carried out and she was involved in the installation of subsea production equipment using Remote Operated Vehicles. She was also involved in the commissioning of the Foinaven. In 2000 she left the UK oilfields and went to the Bay of Campeche, Mexico, there she carries out construction and platform support work. Heave/swell compensation in the tube to enable operation in rougher weather. A Citadel area to which people could retire and survive if the vessel was engulfed in gas, a drenching system to cool exterior surfaces if the vessel was close to a burning platform. The largest capacity and longest range firefighting monitors ever at sea, fixed water-cannon on the after columns to cool the underside of production platforms
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BP
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BP P. L. C. also referred to by its former name, British Petroleum, is a British multinational oil and gas company headquartered in London, England. It also has renewable energy interests in biofuels and wind power, the company has around 17,200 service stations worldwide. Its largest division is BP America in the United States, in Russia BP owns a 19. 75% stake in Rosneft, the worlds largest publicly traded oil and gas company by hydrocarbon reserves and production. BP has a listing on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE100 Index. It has secondary listings on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange and the New York Stock Exchange, BPs origins date back to the founding of the Anglo-Persian Oil Company in 1908, established as a subsidiary of Burmah Oil Company to exploit oil discoveries in Iran. In 1935, it became the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company and in 1954 British Petroleum, in 1959, the company expanded beyond the Middle East to Alaska and it was one of the the first companies to strike oil in the North Sea. British Petroleum acquired majority control of Standard Oil of Ohio in 1978, formerly majority state-owned, the British government privatised the company in stages between 1979 and 1987. British Petroleum merged with Amoco in 1998, becoming BP Amoco plc, from 2003 to 2013, BP was a partner in the TNK-BP joint venture in Russia. BP has been involved in several major environmental and safety incidents. 1.8 million gallons of Corexit oil dispersant were used in the cleanup response, legal proceedings continued into January 2015 which determined payouts and fines under the Clean Water Act and the Natural Resources Damage Assessment. BP appealed the ruling, which raised concerns about BPs future and they settled in July 2015 in the amount of $19 billion plus the original amount. In May 1908 a group of British geologists discovered a large amount of oil at Masjid-i-Suleiman in Mohammerah and it was the first commercially significant find of oil in the Middle East. William Knox DArcy, by contract with the Emir of Mohammerah, Sheikh Khazal Khan al-Kaabi and this event changed the history of the Middle East. The oil discovery led to petrochemical industry development and also the establishment of industries that depended on oil. On 14 April 1909, the Anglo-Persian Oil Company was incorporated as a subsidiary of Burmah Oil Company, some of the shares were sold to the public. The first chairman and minority shareholder of the company became Lord Strathcona, the refinery was built and began operating in 1912. In 1913, the British Government acquired a controlling interest in the company and at the suggestion of Winston Churchill, the Royal Navy, which projected British power all over the world, came to be run 100% on oil from Iran. In 1919, the became a shale-oil producer by establishing a subsidiary named Scottish Oils which merged remaining Scottish oil-shale industries
37.
Q4000
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Q4000 is a unique multi-purpose oil field construction and intervention vessel commissioned in 1999 by Cal Dive International, and was built at the Keppel AmFELS shipyard in Brownsville, Texas. She was delivered in 2002 within the $180 million budget, and she is operated by Helix Energy Solutions Group. The original Q4000 concept was conceived and is owned by SPD/McClure, the design was later modified by Bennett Offshore, which was selected to develop both the basic and detailed design.9 meter x 6.4 meter moonpool A7 3/8 inch intervention riser system. A 3048-meter heavy weather ROV system An overall deck capacity of 4,000 Tonnes Q4000 was in the Gulf of Mexico participating in the response to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, both attempts failed to stop the oil leaking from the well. After removal of the riser and drill pipe on the Horizon BOP. The Q4000 was used in a static kill procedure, where mud, followed by cement, was pumped into the well. The Horizon BOP was secured on the deck of the Q4000 around 10, the failed Horizon BOP was collected as key evidence into the investigation of the causes of the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill
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Odyssey (launch platform)
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L/P Odyssey is a self-propelled semi-submersible mobile spacecraft launch platform converted from a mobile drilling rig in 1997. The vessel was used by Sea Launch for equatorial Pacific Ocean launches and she works in concert with the assembly and control ship Sea Launch Commander. Her home port is the Port of Long Beach in the United States. In her current form, Odyssey is 436 feet long and about 220 feet wide, with an empty displacement of 30,000 short tons. The vessel has accommodations for 68 crew and launch system personnel, including living, dining, medical, a large, environmentally-controlled hangar stores the rocket during transit and then rolls it out and erects it prior to fueling and launch. The platform was built in 1982 for Ocean Drilling & Exploration Company by Sumitomo Heavy Industries and it drilled its first exploratory hole about 40 miles south of Yakutat for ARCO Alaska, Inc. The rig cost about US$110 million to build during the early oil boom. During construction the vessel was called Ocean Ranger II, and was renamed Ocean Odyssey after the Ocean Ranger capsized with all hands lost during a storm off Newfoundland on February 15,1982. When built, Ocean Odyssey was classed +A1 +AMS by the American Bureau of Shipping for unrestricted worldwide ocean service and she was a 390-foot long, 226-foot wide, twin-hull design with a 12,450 hp propulsion system. The rigs structure was designed to simultaneously withstand 100-knot winds, 110-foot waves, the derrick was fully enclosed with a heated drill floor permitting operations down to −35 °C. The rig had other advanced features as well. On September 22,1988, Ocean Odyssey suffered a blowout while operated by ODECO on hire to ARCO, the ultimate direct cause of the incident was a failure of the subsea wellhead equipment after a prolonged period of well control. During the resulting fire the operator, Timothy Williams, was killed. He had been ordered from the lifeboats and back to the room by the rigs manager. Survivors were picked up by the rigs emergency standby vessel Notts Forest, an RAF Hawker Siddeley Nimrod provided coordination on scene. The incident was featured in the 1990 STV television series Rescue episode Missing, Ocean Odyssey spent the next several years as a rusting hulk in the docks of Dundee, Scotland. Her availability prompted Boeing to establish the Sea Launch consortium, for which she was bought in 1993 by Kværner Rosenberg of Stavanger, Norway, from late 1995 to May 1997, Kværner extended the length of the platform and added a pair of support columns and additional propulsion systems. The upper deck — the location of the drill floor — was rebuilt to accommodate the launch pad
39.
Agip
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Agip is a former Italian automotive gasoline, Diesel, LPG, lubricants, fuel oil, and bitumen retailer established in 1926. It has been a subsidiary of the petroleum company Eni. In 2003, Eni acquired Agip Petroli S. p. A. creating the Refining and Marketing Division, don Sturzo continued the controversy, stating in a public company was the only way for a national energy independence. Coal in Italy was scarce and of poor quality and it was imported from abroad at prices that seriously weighed on currency balance and limited industrial growth. Power plants, which were not very developed and mainly concentrated in the north of the country, the share capital was given for a 60% from the Ministry of the Treasury, for a 20% by Istituto Nazionale Assicurazioni and the remaining 20% by the Social Insurance. The first president was Ettore Conti, contractor in the electricity sector, the establishment of the company was attributed by many analysts to Giuseppe Volpi di Misurata, Ministry of Finance, and Joseph Belluzzo, Ministry for the national economy. In 1927 the Mining Act was issued, which gave the ownership of the subsoil to the State and imposed the rule that any oil-related activity was subject to authorization and it experienced difficulties after the crisis of 1929, but began to flourish in the 1930s. In 1933, a new law was issued in the field of protectionist refineries, Agip had a facility for refining at Fiume and in 1936 it took over a refinery at Porto Marghera, owned by Volpi di Misurata. Soon after it made an agreement with Montecatini for the creation of the joint enterprise Anic, then Anic built two refineries to process the oil extracted in Albania from Azienda Italiana Petroli Albanesi, a subsidiary of Agip. However the Albanian oil was of quality and its processing proved uneconomical. Eni with you on the road
40.
Talisman Energy
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RSX Energy Inc. was an oil and gas company which January 2008 was acquired by Talisman Energy. RSX was based in Calgary, Alberta and it was focused on exploration, formed in 1997 as a capital pool corporation, the Company completed its qualifying transaction in November 2001, continuing under the name Royal Sovereign Exploration Inc. In 2002, the Company’s name was changed to RSX Energy Inc, on 18 January 2008 the company agreed a deal for Talisman Energy to buy the company for C$1. 70/share in a deal worth C$106 m. RSX Energy explored for and produces oil and gas and it had interests in wells in the Canadian provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan, and its core drilling areas are Bezanson/Gold Creek, Willesden Green, and Randell. The group had net proved plus probable reserves of 2.7 billion barrels of oil equivalent and it also drilled 25 gross wells, which resulted in 15 oil wells, eight gas wells, and two dry holes, for a 90% drilling success. Its 2005 drilling program includes participation in another 32 gross wells, Lee Baker, President of RSX Energy, formed Nordegg Resources Inc. following the successful sale to Talisman Energy. Members of the board of directors of RSX Energy Inc. were, Lee A. Baker, James H. Coleman, Ian M. Fergusson, Michael L. Rose, oil well Drilling List of oil-producing states RSX Energy Inc
41.
Aker ASA
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Aker ASA is a Norwegian holding company engaged in offshore fishing, construction and engineering. The company is listed on Oslo Stock Exchange and is controlled by Kjell Inge Røkke with 66. 66% ownership through TRG Holding, the corporate headquarters are located in Oslo, Norway. The company was established in 2004 and it takes its name from the former Akers mekaniske Verksted, which was closed in 1982. In 1987 one of the companies split off from the shipyard merged with Norcem. The cement business was sold in 1999, Kjell Inge Røkke used his investment company Resource Group International to purchase large amounts of Aker shares, and merged the two companies in 1996 to form Aker RGI. Kværner had been through major economical trouble due to a bad market in the late 1990s because of the low oil price, after the merger the holding company changed its name back to just Aker. In 2007, as part of the Aker Material Handling group of companies, Constructor/Dexion was sold to the Swedish finance investor Altor Equity Partners
42.
Mitsui
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Mitsui Group is one of the largest keiretsu in Japan and one of the largest corporate groups in the world. The major companies of the group include Mitsui & Co, Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation, Sapporo Breweries, Toray Industries, Mitsui Chemicals, Isetan Mitsukoshi Holdings, Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Holdings, Mitsui Engineering & Shipbuilding, Mitsui O. S. K. Founded by Mitsui Takatoshi, who was the son of a shopkeeper in Matsusaka. From his shop, called Echigoya, Mitsui Takatoshis father originally sold miso, later, the family would open a second shop in Edo. Takatoshi moved to Edo when he was 14 years old, sent back to Matsutaka by his brother, Takatoshi waited for 24 years until his older brother died before he could take over the family shop, Echigoya. He opened a new branch in 1673, a large gofukuya in Nihonbashi and this genesis of Mitsuis business history began in the Enpō era, which was a nengō meaning Prolonged Wealth. In time, the division separated from Mitsui, and is now called Mitsukoshi. Traditionally, gofukuyas provided products made to order, a visit was made to the customers house, the system of accountancy was called margin transaction. Mitsui changed this by producing products first, then selling them directly at his shop for cash, at the time, this was an unfamiliar mode of operation in Japan. Even as the shop began providing dry goods to the government of the city of Edo, at about this time, Edos government had struck a business deal with Osaka. Osaka would sell crops and other material to pay its land tax, the money was then sent to Edo—but moving money was dangerous in middle feudal Japan. In 1683 the shogunate granted permission for money exchanges to be established in Edo, the Mitsui exchange shops facilitated transfers and mitigated that known risk. After the Meiji Restoration, Mitsui was among the enterprises that could expand to become not simply because they were already big. Mitsuis main business in the period were drapery, finance and trade. The diversification was made mainly into related fields to take advantage of accumulated capabilities, for instance, on July 1,1876, Mitsui Bank, Japans first private bank, was founded with Takashi Masuda serving as president. Mitsui Bank, which following a merger with Taiyō-Kobe Bank in the mid 1980s became part of Sakura Bank, during the early 20th century, Mitsui was one of the largest zaibatsu, operating in numerous fields. Mitsui Bank became the company of the Mitsui zaibatsu from 1876. It was joined as a parent company by Mitsui & Co. and Mitsui Mining in 1900, with various industrial concerns owned by various combinations of these companies
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Mitsubishi Heavy Industries
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Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd. is a Japanese multinational engineering, electrical equipment, and electronics company headquartered in Tokyo, Japan. Through its defense-related activities it is the worlds 23rd-largest defense contractor measured by 2011 defense revenues, MHI is one of the core companies of the Mitsubishi Group. This was renamed Nagasaki Seitetsusho in 1860, and construction was completed in 1861, following the Meiji Restoration of 1868, the shipyard was placed under control of the new Government of Meiji Japan. The first dry dock was completed in 1879, iwasaki purchased the shipyards outright in 1887. In 1891, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries - Yokohama Machinery Works was started as Yokohama Dock Company and its main business was ship repairs, to which it added ship servicing by 1897. The works was renamed Mitsubishi Shipyard of Mitsubishi Goshi Kaisha in 1893, the Mitsubishi Heavy Industries - Shimonoseki Shipyard & Machinery Works was established in 1914. It produced industrial machinery and merchant ships, the Nagasaki company was renamed Mitsubishi Shipbuilding & Engineering Company, Ltd. in 1917 and again renamed as Mitsubishi Heavy Industries in 1934. It became the largest private firm in Japan, active in the manufacture of ships, heavy machinery, airplanes, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries merged with the Yokohama Dock Company in 1935. From its inception, the Mitsubishi Nagasaki shipyards were heavily involved in contracts for the Imperial Japanese Navy, the largest battleship Musashi was completed at Nagasaki in 1942. The Kobe Shipyard of Mitsubishi Goshi Kaisha was established in 1905, the Kobe Shipyard merged with Mitsubishi Heavy Industries in 1934. The Kobe Shipyard constructed the ocean liner Argentina Maru, and the submarines the I-19, following the dissolution of the zaibatsu after the surrender of Japan at the end of World War II, Mitsubishi divided into three companies. Mitsubishi Nagasaki became West Japan Heavy Industries, Ltd, the Nagasaki Shipyard was renamed Mitsubishi Shipbuilding & Engineering Co. Ltd. in 1952. The Mitsubishi Kobe Shipyard became Central Japan Heavy Industries, Ltd. in 1950, in 1964, the three independent companies from the 1950 break-up were merged again into one company under the name of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd. The Nagasaki works was renamed the Nagasaki Shipyard & Engine Works, the Kobe works was renamed the Mitsubishi Heavy Industries - Kobe Shipyard & Machinery Works. In 1970, MHIs automobile parts department became an independent company as Mitsubishi Motors, MHI participated in a ¥540 billion emergency rescue of Mitsubishi Motors in January 2005, in partnership with Mitsubishi Corporation and Mitsubishi Tokyo Financial Group. As part of the rescue, MHI acquired ¥50 billion of Mitsubishi Motors stock, increasing its stake to 15 percent. In October 2009, MHI announced an order for up to 100 regional jets from the United States-based airline Trans States Holdings. MHI entered talks with Hitachi in August 2011 about a merger of the two companies, in what would have been the largest merger between two Japanese companies in history
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