Protection and safety through impenetrable defenses

The governing principle in operating Mittelplate Drilling and Production Island is to maintain reliable, impenetrable defenses – both towards the outside against the forces of nature, and towards the inside to protect the environment. For this reason, the 70 x 95 meter island was constructed on Mittelplate’s sandy tidelands as a compact, leak-proof steel-and-concrete basin with sheet pile walls of up to 11 meters in height facing the sea. Nothing can enter from the outside, apart from rain and spray water. And nothing can escape from within the island to the outside, either. Even seepage is not possible. A scour protection belt surrounds and protects the island.

Mittelplate Drilling and Production Island surrounded by ice  

Designed on the basis of detailed and comprehensive hydrographical, fluid dynamics and meteorological studies, this type of construction provides maximum stability. Neither storm tides nor floating ice have in any way affected the island in the decades of its operation.