Mexico is a major supplier of crude oil worldwide, and most of its oil production comes from offshore reservoirs mainly located in the Bay of Campeche, Gulf of Mexico, Mexico. Because oil exploitation is carried out offshore, a number of offshore structures have been developed in order to access the oil reservoirs. Among these structures, offshore platforms are considered the key elements of the entire exploration and production system. Recent in situ investigations have discovered crude oil migration from the oil reservoir in the Cantarell field, considered the most important oil field in the Bay of Campeche, into the upper soil strata and sea water. Given the critical role for offshore platforms, there is concern that oil contamination may negatively impact the mechanical properties of the foundation soils and present a risk to the stability of the offshore platforms.; The objectives of this research are to assess the impact of oil contamination on the mechanical properties of reconstituted, analog sand having the same grain size distribution as an important sand layer found near a major oil migration area within the Bay of Campeche. The mechanical properties studied included shear strength and stress-strain behaviour. The interface friction and the stress-displacement behaviour between the analog sand and mild steel were also addressed to aid in pile-sand interaction investigations.; It was found that the undrained, triaxial compression stress-strain behaviour of the oil contaminated analog sand was improved due to oil contamination. Direct shear test results also corroborated the improvement in the strength of the oil contaminated sand found from the triaxial testing. The interface direct shear test results showed that the interfacial friction angle decreases as a result of oil contamination and, depending on the design calculations for the offshore piles, may present a risk to offshore platform stability.
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