science · 03 November 1975 · 50 years ago
In 1975, Queen Elizabeth II opened the North Sea pipeline, Firth of Forth. The first oil was piped ashore from the North Sea at Peterhead, Scotland. From BP's "Forties Field" the pipe runs 110 miles along the seabed and then 130 miles to the oil refinery at Grangemouth. The field was discovered by the drilling rig Sea Quest in October 1970. Now, oil from the Forties reservoir is produced through some 55 producing wells which deviate by up to 65° from the vertical and fan out to 3 kilometres from each of several platforms.
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