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Where Oil Rigs Go to Die (2017)
- simonsarris 8y agoThe graveyard shot is incredible. Surprised there's not more photos of ship-breaking itself, which lends itself to some dramatic shots. Examples: https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2014/11/the-ship-breakers/100859/ https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2014/11/the-ship-breakers/...
- ghaff 8y agoIt really is. My first engineering job out of school was designing offshore drilling rigs (mostly service systems like ballast) and running shipyard projects. The economics of the industry have really gone through boom and bust cycles as the article says. I lucked out on timing. I got out just as a bust cycle was getting serious to go back to school as I had always planned to anyway.
- ryanmarsh 8y agoThey truly are magnificent structures. The popular image of the oil industry is one of roughnecks around ugly old drilling equipment next to a hole in the ground. The size and scale of the engineering challenge, especially of deep water drilling, are incredible. I wish more people could be exposed to the marvels of engineering in the O&G industry.
- ghaff 8y agoI was interested to learn a while back that one of the rigs I worked on the design of, the Ocean Odyssey, was repurposed as an equatorial launch platform after it was damaged in a blowout. It was mothballed after Sea Launch ran into financial difficulties. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odyssey_(launch_platform) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odyssey_(launch_platform) I haven't kept up with the industry but, especially in retrospect, it was a great first job.
- martinpw 8y agoSeveral satellites, including the first X-ray telescope, Uhuru, was launched from a former oil platform off the coast of Kenya: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broglio_Space_Center https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broglio_Space_Center
- muterad_murilax 8y agoWhat graveyard shot? All I see is ads.
- hcs 8y agohttps://media.guim.co.uk/51370940379b5a46c6f1f917b3f025e4da3a8f6c/0_0_4500_2988/master/4500.jpg https://media.guim.co.uk/51370940379b5a46c6f1f917b3f025e4da3...
- gen3 8y agoThose are some really good photos, thank you.
- jihadjihad 8y agoGreat find. On a related note, one of the best pieces of journalism I've found in the past several years is about a similar incident: https://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/04/magazine/the-wreck-of-the-kulluk.html https://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/04/magazine/the-wreck-of-the...
- akshayB 8y agoIs it worth sinking them in areas where they can boost aquatic life ecosystems or attract scuba diving tourism. I have read many times on how old shipwrecks turn into a house where lot of aquatic life flourish.
- ghaff 8y agoIt's happened with production platforms. I assume in the case of the exploration rigs, there's a positive ROI to towing them to a ship breaker and selling them for scrap.
- ams6110 8y agoToo much value in the steel and other materials, I'd guess. Sounds like hard and dangerous work for people cutting them up, but it is work, probably in areas without a lot of other prospects.
- dmurray 8y agoThe rig was worth about $3 million as scrap in Turkey, according to the article ($190/ton at 17,000 tons). Approximately $0, maybe less, if the owners were forced to send it to an EU scrapyard, as regulators keep threatening to enforce. At that price level, sinking it to create an artificial reef for environmental or tourism benefits is a competitive option. Though there may be other reasons it's not best suited for that.
- chrisseaton 8y agoSurely they're absolutely filthy and you don't want all the paints, oils, lubricants going into the water?
- Grazester 8y agoSome can and are decontaminated and sunk for creating reefs. I dont think old oil tankers are used for obvious reasons.
- akshayB 8y ago
- JamesCoyne 8y agoSlightly off topic: Here is an amazing video of the heavy lift ship Pioneering Spirit lifting an off-shore rig off its base. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6jEXmOQ22fQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6jEXmOQ22fQ The Pioneering Spirit is the largest ship, in terms of gross tonnage, by a wide margin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_ships_by_gross_tonnage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_ships_by_gross... edit: forgot video link....
- vermontdevil 8y agoIm assuming you are referring to this video? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6jEXmOQ22fQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6jEXmOQ22fQ
- JamesCoyne 8y agoYes, thank-you.
- polpenn 8y agoWhy not repurpose the rigs for residential use?
- ghaff 8y agoHuh? A drilling rig has a rather small living space for maybe 50 people or so in mostly bunk housing. Compared to, say, a cruise ship, they're tiny.
- joemi 8y agoI wonder if it'd be possible to augment or replace the existing living spaces (and other spaces) on a rig. Maybe turn a rig into a hotel-on-the-water kind of thing.
- ghaff 8y agoThe thing is: You're now effectively living on an island, albeit one that requires ongoing maintenance and other expenditures to remain seaworthy. And hope you don't have a big storm that you're very exposed to. Most people don't want to live someplace where they have to take a boat trip to go to work or the grocery store. Some are fine with that but, guess what, you can often live on islands with a fairly low COL. There's tons of land in the US generally. It's just some specific locations of land that are expensive. From an engineering perspective, you also can't build it up that much. When I worked on rig designs, every time we added equipment, we had to verify that the center of gravity remained within acceptable limits. You can't just build a multi-level structure atop the entire rig or it would become dangerously unstable.
- toomanybeersies 8y agoThey've tried floating hotels before, generally they aren't successful. The problem with floating hotels is that they're all the disadvantages of cruise ships, mixed with the disadvantages of a hotel. Like a cruise ship, you're still on a relatively small floating building, which limits the activities you can do, and you also have to deal with sea sickness and storms. Like a hotel you're stuck in one place, the main drawcard of cruise ships is that you're cruising between locations. Now instead of a floating hotel, you could turn it into a little sovereign floating town for libertarians. People have proposed this and made efforts to manifest such a libertarian utopia, but have never actually succeeded.
- wilburTheDog 8y agoWhat a strangely touching article. I'm not particularly interested in oil rigs, but that was a compelling read.
- megy 8y ago> I'm not particularly interested in oil rigs, Are many people?
- crtasm 8y agoFor any UK comedy fans, there's an episode of Only Fools and Horses that was made to promote careers in the oil industry. No laughter track and I guess they didn't want to pay for the theme tune but it's still a fun watch http://tellyspotting.kera.org/2013/11/08/the-lost-only-fools-and-horses-episode-licensed-to-drill/ http://tellyspotting.kera.org/2013/11/08/the-lost-only-fools...