Pori, FINLAND: The era of easy oil is over and the race is on to produce tomorrow's oil from new and more hostile frontier environments. The construction of the hull of one of the world's deepest oil production facilities is now complete and today it started to make its 8,200 mile journey from the shipyard in Pori, Finland, to Texas, USA.
The massive steel spar structure, which is as tall as the Eiffel Tower, and weighs as much as 10,000 family cars, forms part of Shell's most ambitious deepwater offshore oil and gas development ever undertaken and will be the world's deepest spar production facility.
The hull, which is 39 meters (118 feet) in diameter and 170 meters (555 feet) tall, and weighs approximately 22,000 short tons will travel 8,200 miles to the Kiewit Offshore Services fabrication yard in Ingleside, Texas. The construction of the hull began in November 2006, requiring more than two million man hours.
