I was until recently a mechanical technician on board this beast, I'm about to go work on a Shell platform at the end of the month...
being built in El Ferrol, Spain
being launched
Offloading to a shuttle tanker
the view from the accommodation roof
and the rig next to the FPSO
Well here's the breakdown for all of you who are still confused.
I work on the Captian FPSO, block 13/22a of the North Sea. It's about 150 miles from land. FPSO mean Floating Production, Storage & Offloading facility.
Basically the rig next to the FPSO drills for the oil and then processes it to get most of the gas out. It then comes over by pipe to the FPSO's turret (the big round green thing in the pics) This is anchored to the seabed and never moves. The boat can turn around this so that it's always facing into the weather to make life and production a bit easier as it's more stable.
It get's produced through all the gubbins in the middle (it's complicated so won't go into that) and then goes into tanks in the hull, much like an oil tanker. When the tanks get full an oil tanker comes up behind us and the oil gets pumped over to it and it all starts again.
The accommodation is the big white bit at the front with the heli-pad ontop
Some people think it's weird that I can get from my bed to my desk in about 30 seconds lol
So anyway there it is... any questions just ask
oh and here are some pics of the Rig being put together... these are some big-*** cranes! For a rough idea of size the big yellow "CAPTAIN WPP" sign is roughly the size of two double-decker busses parked end-to-end
You might well remember this rig, because in 1996 the very top of it hit the Erskine Bridge outside Glasgow, oops!