The plant industry plays a crucial role in building production facilities, yet it remains largely unfamiliar to those outside the field. This unfamiliarity makes it ripe for exploration as fresh material in a movie. Today, I'd like to introduce a film centered around plants and examine whether the portrayal aligns closely with real-world plants or if it takes a more imaginative approach, akin to how sci-fi movies set in space evoke mystery and intrigue.
Underwater, 2020
The movie "Underwater" that I'm going to introduce today is directed by William Eubank and was released in May 2020.
Movie Details:
• Director: William Eubank
• Cast: Kristen Stewart, Jessica Henwick, T.J. Miller, Vincent Cassel, John Gallagher Jr.
• Genre: Action, Thriller
Movie Plot (Spoiler Alert!)
"Underwater" kicks off with the Kepler Station, a deep-sea drilling site, getting swarmed by deep-sea creatures and crumbling down. The main character, mechanical engineer Norah, along with the captain and their team, try to shift over to the Roebuck Station, where chances of survival look better. As the story unfolds, they battle the creatures, witness sacrifices from their crewmates, and encounter several other challenges, all while aiming to get out of the mess.
Marine Plant in the Movie:
The underwater facility, owned by the fictional Tian Industries, boasts a massive production capacity. It churns out roughly 26.8 million barrels per day, derived from an annual production of 140 billion tons, using a standard "barrels per day" conversion. Furthermore, the protagonists' final destination, the Roebuck Station, is nestled in the Mariana Trench, plunging deeper than Mount Everest at 6.9 miles (around 11,035m). This trench, infamous for its intense pressure, demands specialized equipment, like drills tough enough to withstand over 6000 tons of pressure per square inch. These details hint at the movie's sci-fi genre.
Structures featured in the movie are as follows:
• Kepler Station / Control center for the Roebuck drill / Crew of 316
• Deep Bore Access Tunnel / #0: 10.3km (5.4 miles)
• Midway Station / Poseidon-class drilling facility (bore site, installed above the reservoir to monitor and control the extracted oil) / Depth 10.5 km (6.5 miles)
• Shepard Drill / Enclosed exploration unit / Depth 10.8km (6.7 miles)
• Roebuck station / Triton-class drilling facility (bore site) / Depth 11.1km (6.9 miles)
Real Underwater Plants
Before we delve into examining the movie's portrayal for accuracy, let me provide a brief overview of the structure of real underwater drilling facilities. These facilities, designed for extracting oil beneath the seabed, usually consist of the following elements.
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• Christmas Tree (XT): Installed on the wellhead (Well) depicted in the diagram, it comprises valves used to control the production from the well. Initially named for its resemblance to a Christmas tree, it is now commonly referred to as a Subsea tree.
• Manifold: A system that gathers the production from 3 to 4 wells and supplies it to the separator and pump compressor. It may also include a Subsea separator.
• Subsea Separator: Equipment installed on the seabed to separate oil, gas, and various impurities in the production fluids, which often contain over 70% water, into water, gas, and oil, performing the task of separating and processing the production fluid from the seabed into water, gas, and oil.
• Subsea Pump (Electric Submersible Pump or ESP Pumping Station depicted in the above diagram): Transports the separated oil from the Subsea separator to the surface facilities at high pressure.
• Subsea Compressor: Installed on the manifold, it compresses the separated gas from the Subsea separator to high pressure for transmission to the surface facilities.
• Riser and Flowline: Pipelines that transport the extracted oil from the wellhead on the seabed to the offshore platform.
• PLET (Pipeline End Termination): The point where two or more pipelines are connected.
• Jumper: Connects between subsea structures.
• Umbilical: Subsea cables.
Fact Check
Q: Is it possible for drilling equipment to be powered by nuclear energy? Is it realistic?
It seems feasible. Private ships powered by nuclear energy were built as early as the 1960s, and Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) are now used across different sectors. South Korea stands out as a frontrunner in small nuclear reactor technology, being the first to receive regulatory approval for standard design.
Q: Is it possible to drill in the Mariana Trench, which is deeper than Mount Everest (8848m) when inverted?
There are technical hurdles in making and installing all equipment and materials strong enough to handle the pressure of 8 tons per square inch. However, given that James Cameron, a civilian (?), developed and produced the Deepsea Challenger to explore the Mariana Trench, it seems possible to create and set up full-scale production facilities, including Living Quarters (LQ) for crew living underwater. While it appears technically doable, I found the movie's setting unrealistic due to potential cost challenges. The expenses of deep-sea exploration and extraction are decreasing, but building drilling facilities at the Earth's deepest point, which requires significantly more investment than conventional offshore drilling, particularly as fossil fuels decline due to climate change, seemed highly improbable.
Q: Is it possible for crew members to actually wear suits and move underwater (riding an elevator down and walking 1600m along a pipeline) as depicted in the movie?
While divers may be used during the construction of underwater plants for installing structures, there have been no instances found of individuals wearing suits and walking underwater as portrayed in the movie.
Yet, interestingly, there has been an underwater concert. Statoil, the Norwegian state-owned oil company, organized it to celebrate the 10th anniversary of Troll-A's operation. Troll-A, a natural gas drilling platform situated in the Norwegian Troll Gas Field, features four enormous concrete cylindrical legs supporting the upper production platform. It stands at an impressive total height of 472 meters, surpassing the Petronas Tower in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The invited singer, Katie Melua, performed beneath the concrete pillars, singing at a depth of 303 meters underwater, earning a spot in the Guinness Book of World Records.
Conclusion
It seems that there are reviews of "Underwater" describing it as terrifying, but personally, I watched it as a unique disaster thriller with a distinctive scale, perhaps because I'm accustomed to creature features like "Sweet Home." Especially with the familiar setting of the plant, it felt somewhat comforting.