International Petroleum Museum and Exposition

museum dedicated to the birth of the offshore oil industry, including the 1947 Mr. Charlie rig

Address 111 First St, Morgan City, LA 70380

The International Petroleum Museum and Exposition commemorates the event that changed the global energy industry: the drilling of the world's first successful offshore oil well by Kerr-McGee on 14 November 1947, just off the coast of Morgan City. The museum traces the development of offshore oil technology from that first platform through the modern era of deepwater drilling.

The centrepiece is Mr. Charlie, a retired mobile offshore drilling unit launched in 1954 — the first of its kind. You can tour the rig itself, which gives a concrete sense of the physical scale and working conditions of early offshore drilling. Exhibits cover the engineering history, the economics of the Gulf oil industry, and the industry's relationship to the communities of coastal Louisiana. Morgan City exists largely because of this industry, and the museum doesn't shy away from that dependency.

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A story
Mr. Charlie, the world's first mobile offshore drilling unit, was not retired to a museum — it was converted into a training facility and kept operational for decades after its record-setting 1954 launch. Workers from around the world learned offshore drilling techniques aboard it. By the time it was finally moored permanently in Morgan City, it had trained more offshore drillers than any institution on earth.

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