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Bullwinkle was a 1,736 feet (529 m)[1] tall, pile-supported fixed steeloil platform in theGulf of Mexico. Installed in 1988, the total weight of the platform was 77,000 tons, of which the steel jacket comprises 49,375 tons.[2] At the time of its construction it was the third tallest freestanding structure ever built – shorter than only theCN Tower and theOstankino Tower – and the tallest in the United States, being 6 ft (1.8 m) taller than the pinnacle of theSears Tower. Of the total height, 1,352 feet (412 m) are below thewaterline. It is located inGreen Canyon Block 65, approximately 160 miles (260 km) southwest ofNew Orleans. Bullwinkle currently is operated by Talos Energy, LLC. The total field development construction cost wasUS$500,000,000 according to some sources.[3][4]
The jacket, i.e. the mainly submerged part of the platform, was built byGulf Marine Fabricators in 1985–1988 at the North Yard location inIngleside, Texas, at the intersection of the Corpus Christi Ship Channel and the Intracoastal Waterway inPort Aransas, east ofCorpus Christi.[5] The platform was shipped using a barge and installed byHeerema Marine Contractors.[6] The jacket, which is some 1,400 feet tall, is the second tallest object ever to be moved to another position (relative to the surface of the Earth), after theTroll A platform.
The Bullwinkle platform was the third tallest freestanding structure built in water after thePetronius andBaldpateCompliant Towers, but it was the tallest of these that could be built on land as is without any modifications.
In 2010,Superior Energy Services took ownership of the platform and planned to decommission it at the end of its economic life.[7][8]
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