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. Sea bed pipes link them and tankers draw the oil at these small platforms.

Others have hundreds of miles of pipe on the sea bed to land oil and gas terminals.

In some cases a number of platforms connect together to send their gas through many hundreds of miles of sea bed gas pipeline to land terminals.

Floating, Production and Storage tankers fix onto sea bed 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 under water vehicles.