History
Shamelessly copied from @Terminal Decline's thread.
The Brent oil field was discovered in 1971, 116 miles north-east of Lerwick, Shetland Islands, in the middle of the North Sea. The field was operated by Shell and named after the brent goose, with production commencing in November 1976. Four large oil platforms were constructed to serve the field, standing in 140m of water - Alpha, Bravo, Charlie and Delta. At the field's peak in 1982 it was producing half a million barrels of oil a day, with enough oil extracted each year to supply over 12 million homes with energy. In the mid 90s Shell began to shift the field from an oil instillation to one predominantly focused on gas.
Brent Alpha was confusingly the last of the four platforms to be installed, in 1976 and is certainly the odd one out of the four. It is supported by a lattice structure, rather then the three or four large legs which hold up the other platforms, with it's flare stack jutting out to the side, in contrast to the other rigs whose stacks rose up to the sky, high above their drilling derricks. In June 2020 the topside of Brent Alpha was cut free from it's supports and transported by the huge lifting vessel 'Pioneering Spirit' to Able's Seaton Port to be cut up for scrap over the course of twelve months, following the fate of it's sister rigs - Delta and Bravo, in 2017 and 2019.
The Explore
Quite funny really. I’ve a mate who works at Able, he posted up on facebook about how he couldn’t wait to get his teeth stuck into B/rent Alpha. He then messaged me to say stay away, it’s mega secure and you will be arrested within minutes.
A few days later I hear off a few usual suspects how that isn’t the case, obviously.
Anyway work and life got in the way as it always does so I was a bit late to the party, but as always it’s good to get out with mates and it turned out to be a very chilled out night with plenty to see. Visited with @Ferret @chills @Drew and a non forum member.
It’s the first rig I’ve done and I’d never seen one up close and the sheer size of the thing is quite breath taking. It’s just a maze of walkways, pipes and doors. A proper playground.
Pics
Exploring with Rose
