A glory hole in the context of the offshore petroleum industry is an excavation into the sea floor designed to protect the wellhead equipment installed at the surface of a petroleum well from icebergs or pack ice.
An economically attractive alternative for exploiting offshore petroleum resources is a floating platform; however, ice can pose a serious hazard to this solution.
To protect the wellhead equipment from possible scouring, a glory hole is excavated into the sea floor.
This excavation must be deep enough to allow adequate clearance between the top of the wellhead equipment and the surrounding sea floor.
Locating multiple wellheads within a single glory hole is made possible by the use of directional drilling.