How to use Offshore Trainer

Offshore Trainer is a 3D model of a complete offshore oil and gas drilling and production platform, above and below the waterline. You can orbit and zoom it, click any item to learn what it is and does, open drawings side by side with the model, follow a shutdown from the trigger to the flare, and walk the decks. Equipment is modeled to typical U.S. Gulf of Mexico practice and the federal rules that apply there. It is a training model, not a design.

The four areas of the screen

The facilities

The site has two facilities and will grow. Each facility also has a page of its own under Facilities with its description, tour stops and equipment list.

Where to start card

The first time you open the trainer, a card offers four starting points: the guided tour if you are new to offshore, the drawings if you are a designer, the walk if you are heading offshore, and the safety guide. Close it with Esc or the ×; it will not come back on that browser.

Links to a facility or an item

A link such as /?facility=fixed&part=separator opens the trainer on that facility with every separator highlighted. The library and the equipment reference use these links, and you can send one to a trainee.

Mouse and keyboard

On a phone, drag with one finger to orbit, pinch to zoom and drag with two fingers to pan.

Standard views

The buttons on the right edge give Iso (three-quarter view), Top (plan), Front and Side (elevations), and + / − for zoom.

Labels change as you zoom

Turn on Labels under Layers. From far away only the large items are labeled; as you zoom in, smaller items get labels too. Each label shows the item name and its tag (V-100, PSV-100, G-1), the same tag used on the drawings.

Know the platform before you zoom in

The platform is laid out the way most shelf platforms are: the wells at one end with the drilling rig above them, the process in the middle, power and quarters at the other end, with the flare boom reaching out past the well end so the flame is as far as possible from the people. Read How it's arranged in the side panel for the reasons, then orbit once around the platform to find:

• The jacket and piles standing in about 300 ft of water, with the conductors running down through the well bay.
• The cellar deck (lower) with the trees and the wellhead control panel, the separators, oil treating and export, and the produced-water treatment, and the main deck (middle) with gas dehydration and compression, the generators, the electrical building, the quarters and, at the well end, the rig's power module, BOP closing unit, choke manifold and bulk tanks.
• The drilling deck (top, over the well end) with the platform rig: the derrick and drill floor on skid beams over the well bay, the mud pits, shakers and pumps, the pipe deck and the cargo laydown. The BOP stack sits on the well being drilled, down on the cellar deck under the drill floor.
• The helideck on top of the four-level quarters, two cranes on the drilling deck, four lifeboats, two on each side, and the two boat landings at opposite corners.

X-ray: below the waterline

Turn on X-ray under Layers to make the sea and the decks see-through. You can then follow the jacket legs, braces and piles to the seabed, the conductors through their guide frames, the risers clamped to the legs, the anodes and the pipelines leaving along the seabed. Items that are below water or inside equipment say so in their info panel, and the library turns X-ray on for you when you go to one of them.

If the model feels slow

Set Quality under Layers to Balanced (full detail only when the view is still) or Fast (no shadows or ambient occlusion), and turn off Shadows. Turning off layers you are not using also helps. The setting is remembered.

Layers

Every item belongs to one layer. Untick a layer to hide it:

Component catalog

The catalog at the bottom of the side panel lists every type of item on the platform, grouped by system: structure and marine, wells, drilling and well control, process vessels, rotating equipment, piping and valves, instruments, safety, electrical, cable and tray, lifting and accommodation. Type in the search box (separator, PSV, crane), then click a row to highlight every item of that type and open its info panel.

Equipment library

Library in the header opens every item in one place: a picture rendered from the model, what it is and does, typical ratings, the safety note, and the regulations and standards that cover it. See it in place takes you to the item on the platform. The library also has reference entries for things the model does not show, such as the subsurface safety valve deep in each well, personal protective equipment, test equipment and communications. Reference entries say so and carry no numbers.

CAD symbols

The library's symbols tab holds the drawing symbols used on the sheets: process and instrument symbols drawn in the style of ISA-5.1 as commonly used on U.S. oil and gas drawings (valves, the SSV, SDV, BDV and PSV, pumps, compressors, vessels, instrument bubbles and signal lines), and electrical one-line symbols in the style of IEEE 315. Each symbol states its basis and downloads as a DXF block. Every operator keeps its own legend sheet, and that legend governs on real drawings.

The drawing set

Press Drawings or O. Pick a sheet from the list at the top of the pane. Click an item on a drawing to highlight it in 3D, and click an item in 3D to highlight it on the drawing. DXF exports the sheet on screen for CAD.

Title blocks say "NOT FOR CONSTRUCTION" and "NOT PE-SEALED". The sheets are generated from the training model to show how a drawing set is organized; they are not a design.

Guided tour

Guided tour walks you through 31 stops in the order the oil and gas move and the order you would learn the platform: the jacket and piles, the conductors, the platform rig (derrick, drill floor, BOP stack, closing unit, choke manifold, mud pumps and shakers), the wells and their safety valves, the manifold, the separator and its relief valve, the flare, dehydration and compression, oil treating and the LACT unit, the boarding shutdown valve, produced water, an instrument with its tubing, the cable trays, power, the ESD stations, the quarters, the lifeboats, the stairs and the cranes. Each stop highlights the item, frames it and explains it (spoken if the voice is on). Use Next and Back, or close the card to stop.

Trace a shutdown

Trace a shutdown follows one upset from start to finish, with the drawing pane open beside the model: the separator's gas outlet is blocked, the pressure rises, the high-pressure sensor trips the inlet shutdown valve, the wells feeding it shut in, and, in a branch, the relief valve lifts to the flare. It then shows how a fire would raise the shutdown to the whole platform, how the general alarm works, and what the emergency generator picks up if the main power trips. Each step highlights the items involved on both the drawing and the model and quotes the rule that sets the timing or set point.

Reading the info panel

Click any item. The info panel opens on the right with:

• the name and tag, the base elevation above mean lower low water (or the voltage, for electrical items), how many of that item are on the platform, and the system it belongs to;
• What it is and what it does, in plain words;
• a table of ratings and sizes. Each value says what kind it is: a regulation (with the section), a standard named only, typical practice from a report or a maker's data, or a model value (see How to read the numbers);
• the safety note, and the safety card for that kind of equipment (level 6).

Panel buttons

Instruments, tubing and cable

The model shows how field instruments are actually installed. A remote-mounted transmitter stands on a 2 in pipe stand with stainless impulse tubing sloped back to its taps, and the gas meter's transmitter sits in a heated enclosure. Cables run in aluminum ladder tray, with power and instrument cables in separate trays, and drop to motors and instruments in rigid aluminum conduit with a seal where the conduit enters the enclosure. Tubing never runs in an electrical tray. Click any of these items to see its size and where the size came from.

Voice settings

Choose a voice and volume under Training. Listen to facility overview reads a short introduction to the platform. Turn the voice off with the header button or V.

The Safety guide

Safety in the header opens the offshore safety guide. Its chapters are: Start here; Alarms, muster and abandon; Escape routes; Hydrogen sulfide (H2S); Fire, gas and the ESD; Permits, isolation and hot work; Working at height and over water; Lifting and dropped objects; SEMS: the safety management system; Earthing, bonding and lightning; PPE and confined spaces; the equipment safety cards; and a 13-question Safety check (pass mark 10). Each rule it states quotes the regulation it comes from, and the chapters link to the items on the platform.

The guide is general. On a real facility, the operator's orientation, the station bill posted on board, the permit system and your supervisor govern.

Safety view

Safety view under Practice and design tools colors the platform by hazard family: pressure and hydrocarbons, fired and hot equipment, electrical, rotating equipment and noise, lifting and dropped objects, falls and working over water, and protective and lifesaving equipment. Click an item to see its safety card: what can hurt you, the controls and the rules behind them.

Walk the platform

Walk the platform puts you on the main deck at eye level. Move with W A S D or the arrows, turn with Q and E, hold Shift to hurry and drag to look around. Stairs carry you between decks, and the buttons on the card jump to the main deck, the cellar deck, either boat landing, the helideck, the drilling deck or the drill floor. The readout names the deck you are on, any hazard zone you are in (classified areas, the compressor, the generators, the drill floor red zone, the mud pits and pumps, the pipe deck, the laydown area under the crane, the helideck, the boat landings, the flare end) and the nearest muster station.

Arc flash

Arc flash works the IEEE 1584-2002 equations for the platform's electrical gear, with presets for the 480 V gear, the 4,160 V switchgear and the TLP's 13.8 kV switchgear (fault currents and clearing times are model values). Move the sliders to see how fault current, clearing time and working distance change the incident energy and the arc-flash boundary, and see the label that results. It is a teaching model: real labels come from an arc flash study of the actual facility.

Quiz me

Quiz me asks ten questions about the platform. Some highlight an item and ask what it is; others ask what an item does. The choices are always similar items, so you have to know the difference rather than just recognize the category. Labels are hidden during the quiz, and Hint gives a nudge. Items you miss come back in later rounds until you get them right. A score of 8 or better counts toward the lessons.

Numbers quiz

Numbers quiz (calculations) asks eight questions with fresh values each round: hydrostatic pressure, kill mud weight, API gravity, barrels and cubic meters, gas-oil ratio, pressure units and motor full-load current. Each answer shows its working and the source of the constants. The well control questions are teaching exercises only; the well-specific plan and the well control procedures govern any real kill.

Lessons

Press Learn in the header and enter the trainee's name. There are four modules. Each lists its objectives, has buttons that take you straight to the right tool, and checkmarks that fill in when you finish the activity:

Glossary

The Glossary tab explains the abbreviations used offshore (BSDV, ESD, LACT, MLLW, PSH and PSL, SCSSV, SSV, TSE and others) and every item in the trainer. Type to search it.

Certificate

When all four modules are complete, the Certificate tab prints an Offshore Trainer certificate with the trainee's name. Until then it lists the modules that are left. It records participation in a self-paced program; it is not an offshore orientation or any training an operator requires. Download my progress saves progress to a small file you can keep, show your trainer or load on another computer with Import progress. Reset my progress clears it, which is useful on a shared training computer.

Export BOM (CSV)

Export BOM (CSV) downloads a bill of materials for the platform built from the model. It opens in Excel with header rows (facility, date, basis, and a training-only, not-PE-sealed notice), then: Category, Item, Spec / rating, Qty, Unit, Quantity basis, Supplied as and Tags. Quantity basis says where each count comes from, for example counted in the model or a length measured along the tray.

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