Crude Oil is refined into many component parts and has many uses apart from the obvious petrol, diesel, paraffin, bitumen for roads, etc. Every day life would be very different if it weren't for the discovery of oil. For example shampoo, cosmetics, detergents, paint, ink, plastics and many, many more owe all or some of their key ingredients to refined oil.

Production methods take different forms including the installation of a platform. This permanent fixture drills, produces, meters, stores and pumps the oil and gas. Extracting the hydrocarbon reduces the upward pressure on the layers above the reservoir. There is, therefore, a risk of the formation collapsing. To prevent this water or gas is pumped in under high pressure.

Some have satellite-mooring platforms within three miles of the main installation. Seabed pipes link them and tankers draw the oil at these small platforms.

Others have hundreds of miles of pipe on the seabed to land oil and gas terminals, like those at Bacton in England, St. Fergus in Scotland and Sullom Voe in Shetland.

In the Brent system a number of platforms connect together to send their gas by approximately 300 miles of seabed gas pipeline to St. Fergus and their oil is sent approximately 100 miles to Sullom Voe.

Floating, Production and Storage tankers fix onto seabed well caps to extract hydrocarbons into their storage tanks. As other tankers connect, the hydrocarbon is transferred and then delivered to land oil and gas terminals.

Rather than costly platforms the industry is moving towards advancing sub-sea technology installed and maintained by remote controlled underwater vehicles.