SUMMARY
The object of research is specialized vessels servicing production platforms (SPV) in the shelves of the seas. One of the most problematic places is the need to improve the efficiency of specialized service vessels for transporting personnel, building materials and supplies to oil platforms in the sea shelves during the operation of platforms for oil production.In the course of the study, in order to improve the SPV operation of the production platforms, the method of variants and the routing of the operation of vehicles were used to develop the methodology. This allowed to improve the work of the SPV in the maintenance of production platforms, due to the reduction in the cost of voyage.The best way to organize the SPV operation in the maintenance of mining platforms in the Black Sea shelf is received. Namely, possible routes of SPV operation were compiled during the pendulum and group-delivery mode of operation, and the best way of SPV operation for the best route was determined according to the chosen criterion. The economic effect of the SPV operation on the selected route and method, which amounted to about 44 000 dollars for the voyage. This result is due to the fact that the developed methodology for the selection of the best version of the SPV has a number of features, in particular, it consists of successive stages:select route schemes for the organization of the work of environmental protection;compiled options for routes of SPV operation for each scheme;selection criterion is assigned;calculated performance of the vessels;the optimal route and scheme are selected according to the adopted optimization criterion.The developed methodology provides the determination of the optimal route and a variant of the operation scheme of the SPV, which provides the lowest value of the cost of transportation of 1 ton-km of cargo. Compared with similar known methods that are used in road transport, similar methods have not been used in the offshore oil business.