Abstract
This chapter discusses the progress of the offshore industry, focusing on deepwater exploration. Deepwater had always meant the water just past the deepest existing platform. When the oil boom in the Gulf of Mexico subsided after the peak in oil prices in the early 1980s and virtually ended in 1986, deepwater development slowed. Deepwater Gulf of Mexico was all but dead until the nineties Even so; deepwater development beyond the shelf paved the way for spectacular renewal of deepwater activity in the mid-1990s. During the 1960s, as the offshore industry expanded into other areas of the world, the platform business remained attractive in the Gulf of Mexico. Brown & Root and J. Ray McDermott remained the two dominant companies in the fabrication and installation of platforms. The chapter mentions that two developments enabled the move into truly deepwater. One was the sense of common purpose within the industry in exploring new technological frontiers. The other key development was the sustained period of high oil prices caused by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) oil embargo in 1973. The central problem faced by marine engineers attempting to design jackets for waters at the edge of the continental shelf was the dynamic interaction between waves and the structure. In water beyond about 400 feet, a platform's natural vibration frequency tends to approach the frequency of cyclical ocean waves. McDermott, engineer Griff Lee mentions on the problem of setting a platform. Engineers returned to their drawing boards to fashion an alternative that would provide cost efficiencies and structural soundness in water exceeding 1,000 feet. Two types of compliant designs for deepwater applications emerged as the most promising in the late 1970s. One was the buoyant tethered or "tensionleg" platform. Another concept consisted of a slender steel tower held upright by a radial array of anchor cables or guy lines, which would allow the tower to tilt from the vertical with a high natural period. The era of deepwater in the Gulf of Mexico during the 1970s and 1980s produced landmark technological achievements in marine design and construction. The deepwater era ended abruptly and with it, Brown & Root's commitment to the next generation of deepwater technology.