Plumbing The Depths For Oil

From The Economist:

Inside story: A recent wave of advances is enabling oil companies to detect and recover offshore oil in ever more difficult places.

IN OCTOBER 1947 a group of engineers from Kerr-McGee, an American oil company, drilled the world’s first offshore oil well that was completely out of sight of land. Located 17km (10.5 miles) off the coast of Louisiana in the Gulf of Mexico, the project involved a drilling deck no bigger than a tennis court. This platform was complemented by a number of refurbished navy barges left over from the second world war, which served as both storage facilities and sleeping quarters for the crew. A single derrick enabled drilling into the seabed, 4.6 metres (15 feet) below. Kerr-McGee’s offshore drilling gear is still used in the Gulf of Mexico. The reused barges, however, are long gone. Instead, far more elaborate equipment is now being used, and in much deeper water.

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