Charting the development of the North Sea Oil business from the early days, when oil companies hired seismic ships to go out and use dynamite to try to determine whether there was any oil out there, to the modern day, this is a fascinating history of oil and gas exploration, development and production in the North Sea. This was a drama enacted out of sight of land, in the freezing waters of one of the world’s most hostile seas. All the major oil companies wanted to get in on the act, as well as the traditional Gulf of Mexico ship operators, and the British shipping industry. Legislation was always frantically trying to catch up with events – but without holding the oil companies back – leading to what read like back-of-an-envelope calculations. It is a story of appalling conditions, monumental feats of engineering and a new frontier in the race for energy independence. |
