largsmantravelling

My memory cards contain pictures of all the places that I have been. So too are the boxes at the foot of the cupboard where the analogue pictures are gradually fading. Since going to sea in 1977 a camera has always been in my luggage. First it was an Olympus Trip, a lovely little compact 35mm. Following that a Pentax K1000 which was basic, hard to master but took great pictures. Now six cameras on from that it’s a small leica.

The featured image is of the Ninian South Oil Production Platform, the principle installation for the Ninian Oil Field which is part of the East Shetland Basin Oil Field. A work connected reason is required to see it, unless you business in involved with North Sea oil you won’t know of it either.

The picture was taken early in October while we were covering during it’s maintenance period. It was good busy platform to work. Well organised too. Crude oil is drawn from a number of wells then pumped via a subsea pipeline to the collecting station, Ninian central. From there the oil is transferred through the main subsea pipeline to Sullom Voe in Shetlands. All quietly without incident.

A British oil company called Lasmo found oil there in nineteen seventy four then the American Oil company Chevron began producing oil from the field in nineteen seventy eight. Before that no one had produced oil from that depth of sea or in such arduous seas and weather. To built the platform and infrastructure was almost as big a project as the Apollo moon shots. Raising the capital for such an enterprise must have an achievement itself. Who would lend money for such a venture. Unheard of at the time, there was no state involvement.

Not unusual for the time, this platform like almost all in those day; was built of Scottish steel with a local workforce in a local yard. interestingly Britain was in an awful condition with high inflation, industrial unrest and huge public spending.