The Eiffel Tower, the leaning Tower of Pisa and the Statue of Liberty – all have been ‘propped up’ by clever tourists in carefully set-up holiday snaps.
But these pictures from Cosco’s Qidong shipyard in China show one man giving the same treatment to a vast offshore vessel.
Pictured is one of the yard worker’s ‘hugging’ Dana Petroleum’s cylindrical FPSO as it leaves the port – heading for the North Sea.
The 30,000 ton behemoth is destined for the $2 billion Western Isles Development Project (WIDP) off Shetland.
It is the largest project currently being undertaken by Dana.
The project involves the development of two discovered oil fields called Harris and Barra in the Northern North Sea, 160km east of the Shetlands and 12km west of Tern field.
It involves a subsea development of at least five production and four water injection wells tied back to the new build FPSO, with oil export using shuttle tankers.
The UK government sanctioned the project back in DEcember 2012. Drilling began in 2013, with subsea installation in summer 2014.
Plateau production is expected to be around 40,000 boepd, adding more than 30,000 boepd to Dana’s UK production. The estimated field life is 15 years with the first oil expected in 2017.