Energy in History

Working offshore

 The development of the offshore oil and gas industry during the 1970s brought a whole new way of life to workers who spent weeks at a time at sea separated from their friends and family.

Life offshore was dangerous, especially during the early days of the industry when death rates were high amid both political and economic pressure to get production flowing. 

Map from Scottish North Sea Oil: Challenge and Opportunity for Industry and Finance (Edinburgh: Bank of Scotland, 1972) in Scottish Trades Union Congress (STUC) records, Box 179; file North Sea Oil Publications. Glasgow Caledonian University Archive Centre. 

 

Rig diagram from Brown and Root-Wimpey, Highland Fabricators Ltd: Nigg Fabrication Yard Progress Report (July 1973) in STUC records, Glasgow Caledonian University Archive Centre, Box 396; file: Visit to Nigg Bay. 

The British Medical Association published a report on health and safety offshore on the period January to September 1975. They found that oil workers were ten times as at risk of death as coal miners and more than double at risk as fishermen, the next most dangerous occupation. The death rate for divers was a staggering one per cent, meaning a diver was eight times more likely to die than a fisherman, 33 times more likely than a miner and 220 times more likely than a factory worker.  

The working environment partly explained the level of danger, but so did pressures on workers to achieve fast production and the offshore environment was also associated with other risks:

"The BMA committee also revealed a 'large unmeasured’ incident of psychological disorders, often exacerbated by violence and alcoholism.'"

Source: North Sea Oil Safety Regulations (1976) in STUC General Council Minutes 14th January 1976 to 2nd June 1976. Glasgow Caledonian University Archive Centre. 

Workers' stories

Jake Molloy, the General Secretary of the Offshore Industrial Liaison Committee on his experiences of working on the Ninian Central platform during the 1980s. He was interviewed in 2021. 

"Again, you think back to what you did back then and the events that you had…you know, I saw some incredible events on Ninian Cent. I mean, the worst one was a bundle of drill pipe…you know, you can…imagine, you know, pipes 40 feet long, a bundle of them, maybe 12 in a bundle, all wrapped up and they’re getting lifted over – which you don’t do now – over the wellheads, so all the wells are right below. And the whole lot tipped and it all came flying down through the wellheads. I mean, it didn't hit a valve, it didn't hit a well. And when you went in to the module, all these pipes are, you know, down through the steelwork and cables burst and goodness knows what. I mean, just a disaster waiting to happen."

"But I saw another one in there where a guy went to take a…like, a choke valve on a well and he was…got a permit and he got told it was all isolated and bled down and he went to take this valve out and as you do, you…with these old systems ‘cause there’s sometimes gas trapped in them, you loosen the bolts off and you tap it, just to let the gas pop it.

"Now he tapped it and this thing took off, just missed his head, oof. And it was a live well. The well hadn’t been isolated. He was blinded with the gas and the oil. Well partially blinded. He came back about a year later with glasses and everything else. But it was a live well. Oil. You know, like you see the John Wayne movies and all the rest of it. It was mental."

Gary, speaking using a pseudonym, was a Department of Trade and Industry civil servant responsible for collecting tax from offshore installations on working offshore during the early 1990s.

"I remember the very first time I went offshore it was to the Forties field. Forties Charlie. They put me in this place. I remember when I took off on my way home on the helicopter and I actually looked back at where I’d been staying. It almost looked like a container on a ship that had been cantilevered out onto the side. So you basically got fresh air down beneath you. So they stuck me down there. It was really cramped in there. It was officially called the south trough, it was kind of overflow accommodation. So they stuck me in there which was fine, somebody's got to stay there. It was more that there was nobody there from the company. …

"But back when I was going offshore regularly, there was no internet. The social scene was totally different. There would be a recreation room and there would be a couple of pool tables and there would maybe be a cinema screen with film. In the evening, everyone would typically gather socially and then once they got satellite television everybody had a television in their room. Mobile phones come along as well. Just like everywhere, people started to interact less and just do their own thing."

Next section: "It's Scotland's Oil"