Chapter 13 - Ring Master at the Forties Field

Abstract

The Forties was the highest of high-profile projects for Brown & Root. It was the first major oil field in U.K. waters and, at the time, involved the largest jacket in the deepest water. As project manager, Brown & Root served as the ring master for a four-ring circus at the Forties. In the world of offshore construction, the company occupied the center ring from the time it began feasibility studies for this project in August 1971 until the arrival of Forties oil in England in November 1975. The most memorable aspects of the Forties project were the technological leaps in platform design, construction, and installation required to recover oil from under more than 400 feet of North Sea water. The enormity of the structures designed for the Forties field meant that fabrication would require a giant construction yard. To save time, British Petroleum (BP) decided to use two fabrication sites. Laing Offshore in joint venture with ETPM of France would build two of the platforms (designated FA and FB) at a yard at Graythorp, England, which had to be remodeled and retooled to take on the job. A joint venture of Brown & Root and George Wimpey & Company would build the other two (FC and FD). It took 18 months of hard work and delays, for the Forties platforms to be ready for float-out and installation. The building of the Forties pipeline revealed the dramatic advances in pipelining since the first North Sea line a decade before. BP invested over one and one half billion dollars to construct the Forties; a lot more than initially thought necessary. Fortunately, with oil at 15 dollars a barrel in 1976 and beyond, this investment was rapidly repaid. In January 1972, Brown & Root and Saipem of Italy received the $39 million contract to lay the line connecting the Forties field to Cruden Bay, Aberdeen.