| On the quayside is the Offshore Energy Centre, a museum of the
offshore oil industry housed in the old drilling rig Ocean Star. It claims to be
the only such museum, but I've seen two more like it since then. |  |
 | As you enter past
the signs which pronounce how safety conscious the industry is, you pass
this bubble which is the rig's equivalent of a lifeboat. It doesn't look
very efficient as a boat despite the propeller. Inside is a double ring of
seats with seatbelts which looked to be pretty necessary! |
| Inside the museum are lots of models of the different types of oil rigs.
This is a model of the Ocean Star itself. The legs sit on a mat on the sea floor
(the black area) which helps to spread the load. The aquarium behind shows
what it would look like under sea. |  |
 | Fixed rigs are used
in shallow water. For drilling in deeper water, they use rigs mounted on
ships which float on the sea rather than stand on the sea bottom. |
| The oil industry has spawned all sorts of special purpose ships.
This is a model of a pipeline-laying barge. The pipe sections are welded
as they are laid on the sea bed. |  |
 | Keeping the rigs
supplied requires a class of boat called tenders. They have a large flat
deck behind the superstructure which can be used to hold 30 ft sections of
drill pipe and other stores. |
 | The 'Mighty
Servants' are one of the most
unique sorts of ship. These partially submerge under the
drilling rig and then blow the ballast tanks to lift the rig out of the water. They
carry truly enormous loads. The ships weigh 29,000 tons and the rigs can
weigh another
10,000 tons plus. Mighty Servant 2 sank when it hit an uncharted submerged
rock in the far east. |  |
| This is a model of the top bit of the Devil's Tower. This is the
worlds tallest spar platform. It is the production platform for an oilfield
in 5,600ft of water off the continental shelf in the Gulf of Mexico. |  |
 | They have a Hall of
Fame of people who have made significant contributions to the offshore oil
industry. These were the only two names I recognised. One can understand why
one was so much in tune with the oil industry and the other is the most
famous firefighter of all time, although I didn't think he looked much like
John Wayne. |  |
 | The industry is the
largest source of employment for divers but as the drilling takes place in
deeper and deeper water there is more demand for the use of remote control robots to
perform as much as possible. |
| Outside the 'buildings' the platform is dominated by the
drilling tower or derrick. This is tall enough for three lengths of drill
pipe to be assembled before being added to the active drilling pipe. |  |
 | The brightest piece
of equipment is a cement pump used to line the hole once it has been
drilled. |
| There are many pieces of equipment used in the oilfield but this
is one of the best known. It is called a 'Christmas tree' and is the main valve
assembly at
the surface of the well. The undersea equivalents are similar but have motorised valves rather than the wheel valves in this surface version. |  |
|