Question, what do the oil rigs out in the Gulf do for a hurricane? Do Personnel leave or stay? And how do the rigs stay in place with the hurricane forces? Just curious.

Most evacuate the non-essential personnel a few days early and the rest of the employees try to get off at the last moment. Several platforms and jack-ups have disappeared during hurricanes. It's not fun getting in a helicopter during a hot landing when the rain is blowing 60 mph.

Those are some real Dumb asses... Pun intended

Most platforms are production only and fixed on the bottom. Most drilling rigs tend to be movable (some are constructed on a fixed platform) in some form. Jack-up, Semi-Submersible (like the Deepwater Horizon) or a Drilling Ship in deep water). Too expensive and time consuming to move, so the equipment rides it out, people head for the beach.

Charlie

And that’s when you need a wooden paddle! Whack! Whack! Whack!

F'n Auzzie retard a** mother f*******!

Someone needs to put concrete in those holes.

Daughter, a Chem Engr that once worked the rigs, says that when a hurricane enters the Gulf, non-essential people are evacuated. If the hurricane gets closer, essential people are also evacuated and the rig is run remotely. The next level would be to remotely shut down the down hole valve.

And daughter says don’t call it a rig. It’s a platform. Rigs drill, platforms pump.

I am amazed at what they must go through.

Did anybody catch that crab?

Platforms separate and pump.

Your daughter speaks truth Sir. Been an offshore hand for 25 years. There are drilling rigs and there are production platforms, sometimes there is drilling on a production platform (hate that).

On a production platform during a hurricane non essential personnel are evacuated first, that is correct. Essential personnel stay until we are told we have to leave. Sometimes leaving then is fun, but all part of the journey. Most of the time the platform is shut in manually before we evac, but yes it can be done remotely if need be. If it works.

Shutting down a production platform and bringing it back up again is a complex task and requires a lot of work and testing before it can be brought back up safely. Just like any refinery or chemical plant. I have rode out several minor storms on deep water production platforms and I actually enjoyed it. Sitting in my office chair and rolling from one side of the room to the other and communicating with shore base as the swells hit, I like it.

If your daughter ever worked for one of the majors, we may have worked on the same project together.

You had beer right?

That's a good question, Wade! I would assume you can't even drink out there, due to safety and needing to be sober.

Also, can you fish on them? Is there a way to get to water level and catch some dinner?

Beer would get you fired pretty quickly. Most allow fishing off hours. When the seas are 30 ft and smashing into the second decks the boats are unable to evacuate you anymore because the dolphins are already gone. Lots of lives have been lost when they fail to evacuate early enough. I've never heard of the company employees leaving without a complete shut in of all of the subsurface valves to prevent spills if the platform is lost. Sometimes the higher management would leave us out there too long trying to get every last dollar before shutting in.

Father-in-law did that for most of his life as a mechanic for Atwood. Travels all over the globe working offshore, never did har him talk of a hurricane, but I am sure he experienced some rough seas.

One time we flew into Grand Isle when the eye was just 40 miles away. There were 8 cars in the parking lot at the heliport everyone else was already gone and the island was in storm surge. The highway was under water all the way to Port Fouchon. That's seawater.

Once they didn't even have time to get us to our vehicles. They flew us to New Orleans and put us into hotels for a week. Everyone lost their trucks and cars. One guy had a brand new Vette and it was completely submerged. All of the engines, transmissions, and rear ends were full of seawater.

That sucks!

They weren't all bad. Many times we'd just evacuate to Lafayette and spend a few days in the pool under blue skies. You hated to try to go home or get too far away since we had to go right back in as soon as they could clear the highways and fly again.

The daughter fished off the platform often. No alcohol allowed.

For someone who doesn't know anything about oil production and especially platforms like me, the TV show Richard Hammond's BIG on the Appomattox episode is a good show.

It's a good TV show overall but on that episode he goes on Shells Appomattox platform. I found it really interesting knowing zero about them.


https://www.sciencechannel.com/tv-shows/richard-hammonds-big/full-episodes/mega-oil-platform

That's pretty interesting. I see them decommisioning my old platform. I guess it will be artificial reef now.

Mississippi Canyon 280 decommisioned

LOL, no beer until you hit the beach.

Yeh alcohol is not allowed, safety is taken very seriously LOL.

As far as fishing, most of the shelf rigs (shallow water platforms) that I've been on will let you fish. We would clean the fish and either have the cook cook it up for us and share with everybody, or freeze it and take it home. I mainly work on deep water floating production platforms, and I've only been on one that would allow fishing. Most do not allow it. We use ROV's and divers for a number of different things out there, and there is too much risk of a diver or an ROV getting snagged or caught up on a broken line. I've been on a few floaters where only the top brass (OIM aka HMFIC) can fish, but it's his house his rules. There are ways to get to water level, but normally only under emergency circumstances. Most of the lower deck levels are still pretty high up from the water. On the one floater that I was on that let me & my guys fish, after catching we used a giant weighted treble hook on a rope to gaff the fish and pull them up over the handrail.