Shell "Spars" with the Gulf of Mexico

Early next year Shell expects to flip the on-switch for the deepest oil well yet drilled.

The Perdido Spar, constructed in Finland by Technip, is a 555-foot 50,000 ton cylindrical oil-rig that Shell successfully secured to the sea floor earlier this year in the Gulf of Mexico.

Shell is now in the process of drilling 22 wells into the sea floor that will grant the spar access to approximately 130,000 barrels of crude oil and natural gas each day.  That seabed, known as the Perdido Foldbelt, is about the size of Houston.

A unique aspect of the Perdido is how it will get the oil 9,627 feet (depth of deepest well) up.

Above you can see a number of pumping stations littering the sea floor, but only 5 risers lifting oil from those stations up the rig.

Offshore oil rigs normally have 1 pipeline per well, a direct line from the oil's natural resting place into the rig for production and use.

However, shell intends to built 13 additional wells up to nine miles away.  With just 1 two-mile pipe weighing 500 tons the additional wells offered a nightmare for engineers.  Add on the 22 other wells within proximity to Perdidio and the task seemed too burdening.

So Shell dropped the short-cut and instead installed massive risers that will shoot the oil from the pumping stations top-side.

The Perdido rests 200 miles off the coast of Galveston, Texas.

Total length of pipeline laid, 184 miles.

What is a Spar?

Technologies making this possible

Shell's safesty challenge