The Floating Production Vessel That Turns to Face the Weather
Unlike the fixed Jackdaw platform, the installation 80 miles north-west of Shetland is a large ship — a floating production, storage and offloading vessel named the Petrojarl Rosebank.
It does not roam: it rotates around a fixed central point called the turret so that it faces into the weather, which the BBC reports makes life a little easier on board. If production is approved, oil and gas will be pumped up through that same turret from wells in the field below, estimated at 300 million to 500 million barrels — perhaps 25 years' worth.
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The turret is the best detail in the arrangement: the vessel swings around a fixed point to face into the weather, which is a tidy bit of mechanical manners.
Tidy until you remember it is also the plumbing. If production is approved, oil and gas will be pumped up through the turret from the wells below — an estimated 300 million to 500 million barrels, perhaps 25 years.