Graythorp - oil rigs Gallery

Leaving the rig JLP01_09_752285AF

Graythorp, Hartlepool. A team of people clambering down from the oil platform Graythorp II onto a boat moored alongside.
In the early 1970s Laing Pipelines Offshore constructed the Graythorp fabrication yard and dry dock on the site of the old William Gray Shipyard. The company created a dry dock which was used for the construction of fixed platform North Sea drilling rigs for the BP North Sea Oil Project. The oil platform Graythorp I was launched on Saturday 29th June 1974 and on the weekend of 14th-15th June 1975, Graythorp II was named and floated out of the dock basin down the Seaton Channel to where it was handed over to its owners BP. This photograph appears to have been taken just after the platform had been floated along the Seaton Channel to where tugs then took over, towing the structure out to sea

© Historic England Archive. John Laing Photographic Collection

Cranes JLP01_08_096485

Graythorp, Hartlepool. A view of the construction of an oil platform at Graythorp, showing cranes around the emerging structure.
In the early 1970s Laing Pipelines Offshore constructed the Graythorp fabrication yard and dry dock on the site of the old William Gray Shipyard. The company created a dry dock which was used for the construction of fixed platform North Sea drilling rigs for the BP North Sea Oil Project. By 1972, one thousand men were working on site to build a tubular structure which would support a drilling rig in the North Sea destined for the Forties Oilfield. The cranes on site at Graythorp included two 509 Revolver cranes, capable of lifting 813 tonnes, and six Manitowoc cranes imported from America

© Historic England Archive. John Laing Photographic Collection

Cranes JLP01_08_096482

Graythorp, Hartlepool. A view of the construction of an oil platform at Graythorp, showing cranes around the emerging structure.
In the early 1970s Laing Pipelines Offshore constructed the Graythorp fabrication yard and dry dock on the site of the old William Gray Shipyard. The company created a dry dock which was used for the construction of fixed platform North Sea drilling rigs for the BP North Sea Oil Project. By 1972, one thousand men were working on site to build a tubular structure which would support a drilling rig in the North Sea destined for the Forties Oilfield. The cranes on site at Graythorp included two 509 Revolver cranes, capable of lifting 813 tonnes, and six Manitowoc cranes imported from America

© Historic England Archive. John Laing Photographic Collection