Please note that the content of this book primarily consists of articles available from Wikipedia or other free sources online. Offshore drilling refers to a mechanical process where a wellbore is drilled through the seabed. It is typically carried out in order to explore for and subsequently produce hydrocarbons which lie in rock formations beneath the seabed. There are many different types of facilities from which offshore drilling operations take place, such as bottom founded drilling rigs, combined drilling and production facilities either bottom founded or floating platforms, and deepwater mobile offshore drilling units including semi-submersibles and drillships. Learn more about offshore drilling, the sophisticated offshore platforms that are used, as well as its ecological effects in this book.