Strange ship off Sea Point – Petrobras 10000

petrobras-10000

This ship has been sitting off Sea Point for a couple of days.

It has an unusual structure and looks like a large building at night. I was curious so when I managed to see the name this morning I did some research.

According to Rigzone (there is a site for everything) it is a drillship on the way to explore possible deep sea oil fields off Angola.

A drillship is a bit like a very mobile oil rig. They are used for exploring deep sea oil fields because they can move around far faster than a normal oil rig.

Drillships use dynamic positioning systems to stay exactly stationary while drilling. Using a combination of GPS, wind and motion sensors and a sophisticated computer model the ship can stay absolutely stationary while drilling. Pretty cool stuff.