Photo: Oboronlogics Group
Imagine a city or a factory that does not stand on the ground but confidently floats on the waves. The author of the channel Tsifrohype claims that this is not science fiction – such giant floating stations exist and they are floating freely.
Let's start with Prelude FLNG – the longest and heaviest floating station in the world. It is 488 meters long (almost the size of five football fields) and weighs more than 600 thousand tons. This is a floating liquefied natural gas plant operating in the Indian Ocean off the coast of Australia.
Second is Pioneering Spirit, the ship with the largest tonnage and width. This is a real transformer from the sea, it can lift and move entire offshore drilling rigs weighing up to 48 thousand tons. And all this is done by a team of about 570 people.
Third place went to FPSO Egina, a surface oil production and storage plant. Oil production is carried out on the Nigerian coast and amounts to about 200,000 barrels of “black gold” per day. It is an autonomous world, complete with equipment and infrastructure.
The fourth giant is Balder. This is a semi-submersible drilling rig built in 1978. It is still used to lay pipes underwater.
And in last place is Hibernia off the coast of Canada. This platform is specially designed to withstand impacts from icebergs.
GlagoL also reported on the accident in Baikonur that temporarily deprived Russia of access to the ISS. On November 27, 2025, after the successful launch of the Soyuz-2.1a rocket using the Soyuz MS-28 spacecraft, due to the pressure difference, the 144-ton service cabin was torn out of its socket and thrown into the launch chamber, upside down.
