The Sea platform
The production facilities sit atop a large submersible hull on atower. When the lower hull fills with water, it sinks to a lower depth, providing stability while keeping the facilities high and dry. However, instead of giant anchors holding it in place, the Sea Star is connected to the ocean floor by tension legs. These long, hollow tubes remain rigid at all times, preventing any up-and-down motion on the platform. The legs are just flexible enough to allow side-to-side motion, which helps absorb the stress of waves and wind. These platforms operate from depths of 500 to 3,500 feet (152 to 1,067 meters) and are typically used to tap smaller reservoirs in deep waters
Newest generation platform
The most important feature is that it operates on natural gas. “That means there no risk of an oil spill. That’s what most people are concerned about, an oil spill in a marine environment,” Webb said. “Second, there’s no offshore processing equipment. The noise it generates is a lot less. Because it only has one piling caisson leg, one pipe that goes into the water, the footprint is a lot smaller
