ExxonMobil builds islands in Gulf to drill oil

The production platform at the Sakhalin field in Russia where oil reserves that lay underneath pack-ice were tapped.

ExxonMobil is to use technology developed in the Russian Arctic to boost output from the giant Upper Zakum oilfield off the coast of Abu Dhabi.
ExxonMobil's plan to use "extended reach" drilling from four artificial islands will allow the total volume of crude recovered from Upper Zakum to reach an exceptionally high 70 per cent of oil in place, while production capacity rises to 750,000 barrels per day (bpd) from about 550,000 bpd. "We didn't come up with the concept of an artificial island," said Andrew Swiger, the senior vice president of ExxonMobil. "That had been thought about by other people.
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Source: The National