136 



duction platforms to shore. To date, the petroleum in- 

 dustry's experience in pipe laying has been limited to 

 340 ft. in medium-diameter pipe and 100 ft. in large- 

 diameter pipe. In 1966, a French firm laid a 5-miIe, 

 954-in. line in the Mediterranean in water as deep as 

 1,080 ft. The so-called S-method used to lay this line 

 was developed by Gaz de France in the early 1960s 

 when they laid and recovered 9^-in. pipe in 8,500 ft. 

 of water. Also, in the early 1960s, a jack-up construc- 

 tion barge was used to lay a 14-ft.-diaraeter concrete 

 line off California in 200 ft. of water. 



10 100 1,000 10,000 100,000 1,000,000 



EXPOSURE TIME - MINUTES (lOG SCALE) 



Fig. 11 — Diving Trends 



One very important trend in the over-all offshore pic- 

 ture has been the extension of diver capability into deep 

 water. The trends are shown in Fig. 11. At the 

 present time, the depth record for short-duration cham- 

 ber dives stands at 1,100 ft. and at least one company 

 has indicated that they will make a chamber dive to at 

 least 1,200 ft. by year-end. It is interesting to note that 

 Keller made a bounce dive to 1,000 ft. as early as 1962. 

 Last year, saturated work dives were made to a depth 

 of 636 ft. in the Gulf of Mexico. This series of dives was 

 designed, to determine the proficiency of divers while 

 they were working on simulated oil field equipment, 

 and the results were quite encouraging. 



Saturation time is usually considered to be about 24 

 hours. By drawing a vertical line at this exposure time 

 and cross-plotting, we come up with the following: 



Saturation diving capabilities have been extended at a 

 rate of approximately 125 ft. per year during the past 

 six or seven years. This trend is expected to continue 

 into the future; however, I am not in a position to pre- 

 dict what the ultimate saturation diving depth might be. 



1600 

 1400 



'58 '59 '60 '61 '62 '63 '64 '65 '66 '67 '68 

 YEARS («T.) 



Fig. 13 — Domestic Offshore Wells Drilled Per Year 



The number of offshore wells drilled per year in the 

 United States has also increased rapidly during the past 

 five years. There are about 1,600 offshore wells cur- 

 rently being drilled per year in U.S. waters. This includes 

 wells being drilled from the Thums islands off Long 

 Beach, Calif. 



Fig. 12 — Saturation Diving Trends 



Fig. 14 — Domestic Offshore Wells Drilled to Date 



Fig. 14 shows the cumulative number of domestic 

 offshore wells. By year-end, the domestic total will be 

 12,500. Approximately 85 percent of these wells have 

 been drilled in state and federal waters off the coast of 

 Louisiana. Although accurate figures are not available, 

 I estimate that the total number of foreign offshore 

 wells drilled to date might stand at something like 

 7,500, giving a grand total of 20,000 wells for the Free 

 Worid. 



Fig. 15 shows the growth of Free World offshore oil 

 production. The offshore growth rate has been approxi- 

 mately 15 percent per year compared with an over-all 

 Free World growth rate for total petroleum production 



