page_title: Oil platform
section_title: Jack-up drilling rigs
hierarchical_section_title: Oil platform / Types / Jack-up drilling rigs
caption_attribution_description: English: Escopeta Oil and Gas Spartan 151 jackup oil rig being towed, Kachemak Bay, Alaska
context_page_description: An oil platform, offshore platform, or offshore drilling rig is a large structure with facilities for well drilling to explore, extract, store, and process petroleum and natural gas that lies in rock formations beneath the seabed. Many oil platforms will also contain facilities to accommodate their workforce. Most commonly, oil platforms engage in activities on the continental shelf, though they can also be used in lakes, inshore waters, and inland seas. Depending on the circumstances, the platform may be fixed to the ocean floor, consist of an artificial island, or float. Remote subsea wells may also be connected to a platform by flow lines and by umbilical connections. These sub-sea solutions may consist of one or more subsea wells or of one or more manifold centres for multiple wells.
  Offshore drilling presents environmental challenges, both from the produced hydrocarbons and the materials used during the drilling operation. Controversies include the ongoing US offshore drilling debate.
  There are many different types of facilities from which offshore drilling operations take place.
context_section_description: Jack-up Mobile Drilling Units (or jack-ups), as the name suggests, are rigs that can be jacked up above the sea using legs that can be lowered, much like jacks. These MODUs (Mobile Offshore Drilling Units) are typically used in water depths up to 120 metres (390 ft), although some designs can go to 170 m (560 ft) depth. They are designed to move from place to place, and then anchor themselves by deploying their legs to the ocean bottom using a rack and pinion gear system on each leg.
caption: 400 feet (120 m) tall jackup rig being towed by tugboats, Kachemak Bay, Alaska
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