The Perdido pumps up oil from twenty two wells located 2.5 km down on the ocean bed - deeper than any other floating oil platform.

This massive platform miraculously floats in the ocean. A huge cylinder nearly 270 meters long hangs down into the sea from the bottom of the platform, stabilizing it against rough seas. This is called a spar, and it is named for a kind of crude buoy made by anchoring a log so that it floats vertically in the water.

The spar was constructed in Finland and then carried over 13,000 km to its final home in the Gulf of Mexico.