The $1.2 billion Deepwater Titan has sat idle in a Singapore shipyard for five years, looking like an abandoned cruise ship with booms on its deck.Soon, the vessel, which spans nearly three football fields, will set sail for the deepest waters in the Gulf of Mexico, where the crew will be able to drill for oil eight miles below the ocean floor Chevron company
The search for offshore oil has resumed, driven by a surge in global energy demand, supply disruptions caused by the war in Ukraine and crude prices still above pre-pandemic levels. Other giant rigs that lay dormant late in the past decade, such as Titan, are now also operating in deep waters off the coast of Brazil, while rigs that lack propulsion are mining in shallower waters in the Middle East after hitchhiking to that part of the world in tugboats superior.