From the window of a helicopter 1,500 feet above the Gulf of Mexico, oil platforms look like Tinkertoys in a swimming pool. Dozens dot the horizon stretching south from New Orleans and continuing out as the water deepens and turns a darker blue. Then, about 50 miles offshore, the platforms stop, and for the next hundred miles there's nothing. This is the deepwater Gulf of Mexico, where the ocean floor is 8,000 feet down and covered in a heavy layer of muck. Below that is an ancient salt bed several miles thick, and hidden under that, trapped tens of thousands of feet down, there's oil—billions and billions of barrels of it. And it's all in U.S. waters.
Chevron's Tahiti platform, about 190 miles offshore, first appears as a speck in open water. Even up close, its size is deceiving. A three-level structure sits above the surface, but its 555-foot hull is entirely submerged. At 714 feet tall and weighing more than 80 million pounds, Tahiti is the equivalent of a 70-story skyscraper floating in 4,000 feet of water. The first thing you notice when stepping onto its platform is a high-pitched hum: the sound of thousands of barrels of oil being pulled from the depths and pumped back to shore.
To Chevron, it's among the most beautiful sounds in the world, proof that a decade of investment in deepwater-drilling technology is beginning to pay off for big oil companies like itself, as well as BP, ExxonMobil, and Shell. After a string of hurricanes led to seven straight years of declining oil production in the Gulf of Mexico, a handful of new deepwater projects reversed the trend in 2009. This year deepwater oil is likely to power the first year-over-year increase in total U.S. domestic production since 1991. The turnaround comes as President Obama is making it a priority to wean America off foreign oil. That will require replacing more than half the oil we consume, or nearly 10 million barrels a day, even though domestic oil production has dropped 50 percent since 1970.
This is a short video that is a tour of Chevron's Tahiti Platform in the Gulf.
$5B over twelve years >> then study the potential of the purchased leases for five years AFTER putting out the risk capital >> From 30,000ft you're trying to place a drillbit into someone's backyard >>> hit oil in 2002 >> seven years to build the production platform >> a seventy story building floating in the middle of the Gulf >> a Million lb of tension on each chain securing the platform >> 24-7-365 >> produces 125,000bbl/d >> oil comes out of the ground @ 160degreesF >> cooled, seperated, AND sold all in the first ten MINUTES on arriving onboard >> >> AND this all takes place in a location frequented by hurricanes - and yet the Company still places risk dollars out there - is the risk manageable or "at risk" of failure?
This represents the kind of commitment and acceptance of risk that characterizes the oil and gas industry - everyday.
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