In the Sonda de Campeche, Mexico has more than 100 maritime platforms in which they live permanently - rotating, of course - around 5 thousand people. Learn more about them.
In the Sonda de Campeche, Mexico has more than 100 maritime platforms in which they live permanently - rotating, of course - around 5 thousand people; Frequently the installations are true modular sets of several platforms, a main one and other satellites, joined by gigantic pipes that, while serving as structures for the suspension bridges, form a remarkable geometry of ducts and connections whose vivid colors, in contrast to the range of sea blues, they produce a kind of surreal design.
Most offshore platforms have the function of extracting crude oil and natural gas, which invariably come together. In some wells the liquid predominates, but always with some percentage of gas; in others, the composition is the other way around. This geological characteristic forces the separation of both types of hydrocarbons in the oceanic facilities, to then pump them towards the mainland, as they have two perfectly different destinations: the gas is concentrated in the Atasta pumping plant, Campeche, and the crude in the Tabasco port. de Dos Bocas, built on purpose.
These exploitation platforms (in which approximately 300 people live in each one) are metallic structures supported by piles deeply embedded in the seabed, so that they are fixed installations that usually have many floors, forming real and rare buildings. Its lower part is a pier and the upper part a helipad. Each platform has all kinds of services, from technicians directly linked to production and maintenance, to support and domestic services, such as the excellent dining rooms and the bakery.
The platforms are largely self-sufficient: they obtain drinking water from seawater desalination plants (the sewage is treated); they have thermoelectric generators that run on natural gas; external supplies are brought weekly by the ship that transports perishable food.
Another group of platforms are exploration platforms, which, precisely for this reason, are not fixed but mobile platforms, with elevating hydraulic legs that rest on the seabed, or with pontoons that are filled or emptied of water by means of pumping, with a mechanism similar to that of submarines.
A third group of platforms are the support platforms, both technical -for pumping offshore or other needs- and administrative; Such is the case of an extraordinary floating hotel, which houses hundreds of workers who work on the exploration platforms and who are moved daily by sea, since it would not be affordable to build houses on platforms that could be ephemeral; these facilities even have a pool.
Within this last group of structures, the “brain platform” of the Campeche Sound stands out, which is the telecommunications tower, equipped with radios and computerized radar equipment to control the intense maritime traffic. The equipment includes radars with synthesizers that draw on the screens the type of the captured boat, and a kind of zoom or telephoto to make impressive close-ups of the boat in question.
Safety is a fundamental element in the Campeche Sound: there are bomb ships that launch curtains of water to prevent the transmission of heat from some lighters to the nearest platforms; Such lighters (which also have land wells) seem to the layman a perennial waste of fuel that burns without any profit, but the truth is that they are basic security elements, since they come to act as the "pilots" of any domestic stove: instead of explosive gaseous waste accumulating, it burns immediately thanks to this mechanism. The pipes are periodically cleaned, inside!, By passing solid elements under pressure. There is a team of divers for repairs under the sea.
In Ciudad del Carmen there is a modern heliport with capacity for 40 turbine devices, and more than an installation of our oil industry it looks like a large public air terminal, with joyful bustle and permanent movement.
The oil structures in the Sonda de Campeche are conclusive proof of the level that Mexican technology has reached in this area, which is even exported to other countries.
