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Oil is one of the most precious resources that are known to man. Thousands of dollars are spent a year in oil exploration. Any country that has a good reserve of oil is considered to be the richest country. This is exactly why the oil is also called the black gold.
Under Sea Exploration
Most of the oil exploration in the world has been done under the sea. Many oil companies across the world are working day and night at the sea in order to explore and use this valuable resource. We will now discuss more about oil exploration and ships. This will help you to understand how ships are used in the process of oil exploration.
As we have already mentioned that most of the oil is explored in the sea bed. This is quite obvious that ships have to be used in order to reach the location in the sea where oil has been explored. Most of these spots are in the deep sea. It is not that oil is found under sea only. Many a time’s oil can be located in land too.
The First Step in Oil Exploration
However, the reserve of oil under the sea is more. The first step in extracting oil is to locate it. The sea is huge so how do you expect to locate the oil. Well this is exactly where the drill ships come into play. These are ships that are equipped with drilling machines.
With the help of these drilling machines oil can be located and extracted from the deepest parts of the sea. They are used for offshore drilling. They are used for oil well drilling. This technique is used to locate the oil wells and to extract oil from these wells.
When oil is located in a particular spot it is not necessary that the oil will always be located in that spot itself all the time. The location can vary over a few kilometers. This is exactly why the offshore oil stations or platforms that are used are generally floating type.
Location of Drill Ship
Similarly when a drill-ship is used the location of this ship can also change from time to time. Sometimes the drill ships are only used for extracting oil. Platforms are not set at all. This is mainly because setting a platform is risky and also expensive. However, this is not possible always. This completely depends on the situation.
The ships are used mainly for scientific drilling. The drill ships can be used to extract the oil. They can also be used to store the oil and help in the basic production of the oil. Most of these drill ships are bought and designed by the oil companies. The drill ships have possibility to drill up to three thousand meters into the sea bed.
Oil Exploration Ships Vs Oil Platforms
They are independent and much more secure than oil platforms. These ships collect oil from different and then transfer it to the onshore oil platforms. There are many drill ships across the world. They are stable and can be a safer bet than platforms in rough weather.
There are about eighty drill ships that you can find around the world the numbers are only increasing. The crew members of these ships are well trained in the activity of drilling and extracting oil.
The experts say that the drill ships can even drill in frozen water using ice drilling. The process of drilling using ships is also safe for the environment. These drill ships cause a lot less pollution and can be very safe on the marine life. President Barack Obama has also supported the concept of drill ships. This makes us believe that we will get to see more of these drill ships in the future. There are many companies that specialize in drill ships some of them are Trans ocean sea drill, pride international, etc. These companies have designed some of the best drill ships in the world that are used by the oil companies all cross the world.
The oil exploration drill ships need a lot of complex mechanism. They are more expensive compared to the normal ships. They also have a high maintenance. In spite of these reasons these ships are used in oil exploration for the multiple benefits that they have. The first drill ship was cuss 1.
Since then more and more such ships have been made. The attempts are on to make the drill ships more technically advanced and useful for all. The drill ships that we see now are the fifth generation drill ships. Oil exploration will be an on-going process as without oil it is impossible to imagine life.
This is exactly why the drill ships have to be made more evolved and developed so that they can take up the future challenges. The drill ships should also ensure that they do consider environmental safety in their list of priorities.
We hope that this article has given you a good idea of oil exploration and ships. This is a very important aspect of oil exploration. Many such ships are used all across the world in the oil exploration process. Without these ships it would be highly impossible to locate the oil and extract the same.
Oil Exploration And Ships,
