Mad Dog oil field is an offshore oil field located along the Sigsbee Escarpment at Green Canyon blocks 825, 826 and 782, Western Atwater Foldbelt, Gulf of Mexico. The field is located about 190 miles (310 km) south of New Orleans and 150 miles (240 km) southwest of Venice, Louisiana, United States. It is in the depth of 5,000 to 7,000 feet (1,500 to 2,100 m) of water.
The field was discovered in May 1998 and it became operational in 2005. It is owned by BP (60.5%), BHP Billiton (23.9%), and Chevron Corporation (15.6%). The operator is BP.
The gross estimated reserves are ranged from 200 to 450 million barrels (32×106 to 72×106 m3) of oil equivalent. The field has production capacity around 100,000 barrels per day (16,000 m3/d) of oil and 60 million cubic feet per day (1.7×106 m3/d) of natural gas. Oil is transported to Ship Shoal 332B via the Caesar pipeline, while natural gas is transported via the Cleopatra pipeline.
The field is operated by using a spar oil platform manufactured in Finland. The hull measures are 128 feet (39 m) in diameter and 555 feet (169 m) in length. Its weight is 20,800 tonnes. The deck measures are 220 by 163 feet (67 by 50 m). It includes production facilities with 13 production slots, a drilling riser slot and two service slots, and quarters for 126 personnel. The front-end engineering design of the second spar will be done by Technip.
It was reported on September 16, 2008 that Mad Dog was damaged due to Hurricane Ike. The drilling derrick was toppled over and was on the sea bed. A new drilling package is being built and should be ready to replace the damaged one on the spar in early 2012.
Famous quotes containing the words mad and/or dog:
“If someone does something we disapprove of, we regard him as bad if we believe we can deter him from persisting in his conduct, but we regard him as mad if we believe we cannot. In either case, the crucial issue is our control of the other: the more we lose control over him, and the more he assumes control over himself, the more, in case of conflict, we are likely to consider him mad rather than just bad.”
—Thomas Szasz (b. 1920)
“That hour in the life of a man when first the help of humanity fails him, and he learns that in his obscurity and indigence humanity holds him a dog and no man: that hour is a hard one, but not the hardest. There is still another hour which follows, when he learns that in his infinite comparative minuteness and abjectness, the gods do likewise despise him, and own him not of their clan.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)