Drilling

First major lifts to be removed from the NW Hutton platform will be one of the two drilling towers. As you can see on this picture, NW Hutton was not only a production platform, but had also drilling facilities. Deep offshore drilling is quite something. It is an extreme difficult and sophisticated operation to steer your drill bit up to 10.000 metres in the seabed to the exact spot where you want it. Not only vertical, but also horizontal in a later stage, sometimes up to kilometers long. Everybody and everything is focused on maximum oil and gas flow. Time is money in this industry and with the present oil price this means a lot of money. You can also see that the 'Hermod' cranes are just high enough to lift both towers off. The hydraulic gangway is between the platform and crane barge in order to give safe access from barge to platform.