Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Later on, offshore production developed in the Gulf of Mexico and on
Venezuela's Lake Maracaibo. Given the innate difficulties of offshore
operations, it is not surprising that there have been some major tragedies
with heavy loss of life in the offshore industry. The worst incidents in the
North Sea were the capsizing of the
Alexander Kielland
in the Norwegian
sector in 1980 with the loss of 123 people, and the death of 167 people in
the Piper Alpha blaze of 1988 in the UK sector.
Depth of water is not always the problem. Take Kashagan, a new oil field
under development in Kazakhstan's part of the north Caspian. It is one of
the biggest finds in recent years, and during its peak years, is eventually
expected to produce more than 1m b/d.. The consortium of oil majors
developing Kashagan had already spent $12bn on it by 2008, but the even-
tual total cost of the project is now expected to reach a staggering $136bn.
Part of the technical difficulty of Kashagan is that its oil is under high
pressure in a reservoir that is more than four thousand metres below the
seabed and that it contains a lot of toxic hydrogen sulphide. But the sea at
this point in the Caspian is ludicrously shallow, less than ten metres deep,
so that the drilling rigs sit on the seabed. Indeed the shallowness of the
The view from on top of an 80,000 cubic metre oil tank (some 500,000 barrels)
at the Bolashak processing plant near Kashagan offshore oil field.
