ABSTRACT
Introduction A considerable amount of inputs are required to extract oil and gas offshore. One has to explore the petroleum deposits. One has to design and build equipment to extract the oil from the seabed. And, finally, one has to extract the oil. It is a great logistic challenge to organize all the involved activities in an effective way. In order to study the overall economic organization of these activities, it is useful to identify a few aggregate and strategic inputs. Two important inputs then emerge as natural choices within this framework: 1) the engineering of the oil platform and 2) the oil platform. With ‘oil platform’ I mean ‘all type of installations that are built with the purpose of offshore oil extraction’. The engineering includes ‘all activities involved in the planning and designing of the construction’.
