An oil platform, offshore platform, or offshore drilling rig is a large structure with facilities for well

drilling to explore, extract, store, and process petroleum and natural gas which lies in rock
formations beneath the seabed. Many oil platforms will also contain facilities to accommodate their
workforce. Most commonly, oil platforms engage in activities on the continental shelf, though they
can also be used in lakes, inshore waters and inland seas. Depending on the circumstances, the
platform may be fixed to the ocean floor, may consist of an artificial island, or may float. Remote
subsea wells may also be connected to a platform by flow lines and by umbilical connections. These
sub-sea solutions may consist of one or more subsea wells, or of one or more manifold centres for
multiple wells.

There are many different types of facilities from which offshore drilling operations take place. These
include bottom founded drilling rigs, combined drilling and production facilities either bottom
founded or floating platforms, and deepwater mobile offshore drilling units (MODU) including semi-
submersibles and drillships. These are capable of operating in water depths up to 3,000 metres, In
shallower waters the mobile units are anchored to the seabed, however in deeper water (more than
1,500 metres), the semisubmersibles or drillships are maintained at the required drilling location
using dynamic positioning.

Types

Fixed platforms

Compliant towers

Semi-submersible platform

Jack-up drilling rigs

Drillships

Floating production systems

Tension-leg platform

Gravity-based structure

Spar platforms
Components of offshore platforme :

A multi-component offshore platform having a floatable and ballastable central column with a base
that is adapted to rest on the bottom of the sea. The column is towed to its site while floating and
then upended and ballasted to sink the base to the proper site. A hitch collar is slidably arranged
around the central column. At least three inclined legs, which may each be separately floatable for
towing to the site and are ballastable for sinking, are hingedly secured to the hitch collar. The collar is
then lowered on the central column to a desired height and secured there. The legs then are swung
down by ballasting. Each leg has a foot which is hinged to one extremity of its leg for engagement
with the ocean floor. The superstructure can then be placed on the top of the central column.
Parts of an Offshore Platform

An offshore platform deals with topside facilities as well as the underlying drilling facilities. The
topside facilities lying above the sea level involves an optimization between space as well weight yet
involves all the neccesities for the oil extraction purposes. The ambient components of any offshore
platform involves derricks, drilling rigs, oil storage facilities and tanks, injection compressors, gas
compressors , gas turbine generators, HVAC, Piping, Instrumentation, Basic machinery like primary
and auxillary power generators, cooling system, pressure regulation etc. Also worth mentioning are
control wheelhouses for operating personnel, suitable accommodation and helipads. Cranes and
lifting system for loading and unloading operations are also there.

In the undersea extraction systems, some of the terms worth mentioning are drill collars, drill bits,
wellheads, conduits, risers, BOPs, etc. Though not complicating stuff about the details and
description of each of these, drill bits and collars involve drilling into the sea bed to create the oil well
for extraction. On the other hand, wellheads provide structural and pressure containing interface at
the opening to any oil or gas well for drilling and production.

Risers are components synonymous with any drilling platform inherently. This is basically a conduit
that provides an extension from wellhead subsea to the drilling system above. They are basically of
two types: marine drilling risers for floating platforms or tie-back drilling risers for fixed platforms.
Risers have the catalytic role of conducting the crude oil or gas from the wellhead to the drilling rig
by the virtue of a piston like mechanism which in turn is sent to the above rig for processing. The
design of the riser depends on the filed layout, vessel interface, fluid properties and environmental
conditions. Risers maybe flexible or rigid. Also they remain stable and in tension due to self weight.
They may have profiles to reduce excess load and nonviscous fluid flow.