Here are a few more boats that work the Gulf of Mexico oil fields.
The ubiquitous tug boat. These aren’t the largest, sexiest, awe inspiring or most anything when it comes to work boats. But they have one thing going for them, it doesn’t work without them. They’re everywhere because they are needed everywhere.
This one wasn’t a work boat. It’s an ex-roro (roll on- roll off) ship that carried cars for delivery all over the world until bought by Jeff Bezos and brought to Pensacola to have all of its superstructure cut off except the forecastle. This in preparation to operate as a landing ship for space launch vehicles. It would have operated similarly to the Space X barges. Bezos’ Blue Origin wheels ran off or something happened and his plans crashed. At the moment of this phots, the ships name was Jacklyn, for his mother.
Global 2000, another heavy lift work vessel used for building and dismantling drill platforms.
Deep Blue, makes pipelines for carrying crude from where it is drilled many miles out in the Gulf to onshore refineries. I’ve never thought it through but I wonder if the pipelines need intermediate platforms with booster pumps? I can’t imagine the needed initial pressure to push a viscous oil through 50-100 miles of pipe.
I don’t know how I missed getting photos of it but the USS Oriskiny was brought into port here to be prepared to be the largest man-made fishing reef about 200’ deep in the Gulf. It sits about 22 nautical miles (25 regular) on roughly a 150 degree heading from the mouth of Pensacola Bay. I’ve fished it a number of times but you have to be there when it isn’t covered up with dive boats. I’ve never caught anything anywhere there were a bunch of divers in the area. Can’t get too upset, I used to be a fanatic diver.
“I can’t imagine the needed initial pressure to push a viscous oil through 50-100 miles of pipe.”
That makes a lot of sense Tom. Of course, that being said there are all kinds of specialized pumping systems. Positive displacement pumps that can produce tens of thousands of pounds of pressure exist. But it is a fun thought-experiment to think about how some engineers decided to solve that crazy problem. In their heyday the petroleum engineers were the kings of chemical engineering. Now, of course, they’re akin to Bond villains because they’re murdering Gaia.
But then you’d have to come up with pipe that could handle 10’s of Kpsi. Correct me if I’m wrong because it’s outside my specialty but I’ve understood that bursting pressure of a pipe is (2 x material yield strength in psi x wall thickness in inches)/ pipe diameter and further divided by whatever safety factor you would want to use. For a 3/4” thick mild steel of 60 Kpsi yield and a 48” pipe, that would be about 1875 PSI – minus safety factor.
I don’t doubt they went with whatever booster pumps they needed. Under certain circumstances there can even be a requirement for heated lines. But if this is a pipeline that travels under the ocean for miles that’s an expensive application no matter how they worked it. I was just musing about high pressure pumps because they do have their applications. Weird pumps come up in weird applications. I once had to specify a pump for whole cranberries. Talk about weird stuff.
As opposed to 1/2 cranberrys? Heh!
Exactly. They wanted to pump a slurry of water and cranberries without smashing or cutting them up. We went with a sanitary progressing cavity pump. Of course I never had a chance to see the results of that application. I was sent to California for six months and by the time I got back someone else had been sent to the start-up and I never heard how it ended up.