| Description | BASIL BUTLER interview at Sir Duncan Rice Library, University of Aberdeen on Tuesday June 2, 2015. Interviewer Eric Crockart. Summary by Eric Crockart.
3 sessions were recorded during the day on a Marantz digital recorder. Interviewee and Interviewer wore clip on microphones recording into right and left stereo channels respectively. Interviewee is recorded on the left stereo channel, and interviewer is recorded on the right stereo channel. Indicative timings in the summary are given in (hour:minute:second) format.
SESSION 1.
(0:00:00) BASIL RICHARD RYLAND BUTLER born 1 March 1930 Hexham, Northumberland. Family background. Father schoolmaster and headmaster, from long line of schoolmasters and clergymen, so regarded by family as "black sheep" for going into industry. Mother also teacher till married. Grew up in Midlands, in Staffordshire, father headmaster of Grammar School there. Parental expectations were he would end up in teaching, but no inclination. Bitten by science and engineering bug, influenced by mother.
(0:01:46) Education. Minor public school in N Staffordshire. Straight from school age 18 to National Service with Army at Catterick. Selected for officer training Aldershot. Got commissioned and joined 5th Dragoon Guards with tanks in Germany. Enjoyed it, but did not stay. Got place at St John's College, Cambridge, reading Natural Sciences. Got degree. Looking for job and got into paint industry as a chemist in East End of London. Interesting, but ill-paid. Thinking of getting married. Not possible on that wage.
(0:04:42) Got involved with oil industry through ad in Daily Telegraph for graduates to train as petroleum engineers in Trinidad. Better paid. Thought oil industry and Trinidad sounded all right. Got taken on by Trinidad Leaseholds. Sent to study geology at Royal School of Mines. 6 month course. Got married in June 1954. Then went to Wallsend on Tyne and got on tanker to Trinidad. Trainee petroleum engineer. There for three and a half years. Perceptions of oil industry before joining.
(0:07:38) Conditioned by stories and pictures of gushers. Large and powerful and influential, wanted to be part of oil industry. First job hands on, on drilling rig and how to drill a well, in the field. Got to understand about well logging, glad for this early experience in the field. Trinidad good place for training, complex geology. Company bought equipment for analysing oil in reservoir. Ended up hard way learning how to do this analysis of PVT - Pressure, Volume and Temperature. Pressures of 6,000 pounds per square inch, got to be careful.
(0:11:50) Career progression from then. Came back from Trinidad in 1957. Joined Kuwait Oil Company. Financially attractive, and sailing available - one of his great loves. Very different operation as petroleum engineer there. Big scale operation compared to Trinidad. Great learning experience, promoted to senior petroleum engineer. Company building big LPG plant for supplying refrigerated propane and butane in liquid form. Learned lot from American manager about "Can Do" attitude. Loaded first tanker ever of cryogenic LPG. Became gas co-ordinator, then chief petroleum engineer, responsible for 24 nationalities, great team. Then put in charge of planning, developed scheme to build Kuwait production capacity to 3.4 million barrels a day. Enough for UK and France put together. Wrote paper on sophisticated techniques used, for Royal Society.
(0:17:01) Then at meeting in London with Gulf and BP with top Kuwait management, offered job as operations manager with BP in Colombia. Met Geoffrey Stockwell at BP Britannic House. Asked when he was ready to leave for Columbia. Packed up in Kuwait, after ten years there. Went to Bogota in 1968. Joined BP and Sinclair Columbia Incorporated. Interesting because irregular things had been done, first place he ran into graft and bribery and corruption. Had to unscramble that. Operations manager there, politically interesting. There for 2 years, very active, flying round mountains a lot. Bogota 8 thousand feet up, but oil fields at sea level. Then it was decided to sell interests to Esso. Message from BP London saying he was now wanted in Anchorage in Alaska. Wanted him to devise system for drilling wells in the permafrost. Prudhoe Bay very deep, 1850 feet, presented problems because hot oil would melt permafrost, and make a mess and possibly collapse well. Came up with solution using insulation technology from Apollo Space Programme, got to know some Apollo people well and even invited to an Apollo launch.
(0:23:46) Thinks it correct to compare effort of putting a man on the Moon with putting oil industry into the North Sea. All pioneering stuff, similarities. Solved problem of drilling wells in Alaska. He was made operations manager. Problem of huge delay on construction of pipeline for environmental reasons, 400 miles of 48-inch pipe quite a sight. Got involved in studies by University of Alaska about migration of caribou. Then summoned to Calgary in 1972, asked to go back to Kuwait to be general manager of operations there. Went back, quite a change from being junior engineer there. Had very interesting time, around time of Yom Kippur War, and Kuwait government taking bigger share of company. Gulf and BP decided better look at original operating agreement between the two companies, operating since 1934, couldn't find copy of it. The two companies never had to refer to it, would never happen nowadays. Yom Kippur War, issues of where oil could be shipped to or not. Security service sent message saying two tankers had bombs on them, had one towed offshore and waited to see what happened. Nothing did. Had to become involved in the politics of it all. Official Secrets Act, very conscious of involvement with politics, enjoyed it.
(0:30:56) 1974 - Ninian Pipeline and Sullom Voe Terminal also involved politics. Referred to Matt Linning, who came back from Kuwait to BP and was put in charge of development of the Forties Field. Asked Butler to come back and work with him. Came back on Sunday and started work on the Monday, to start work on Ninian pipeline. Viking Piper pipe laying barge had problems. Had 12 anchors, 9 had broken-down winches because of problem involving motors. Explains this was causing fracture of 14-inch shafts of the cable drums. Had never seen pipe laying barge before. He had to tell guy in charge of barge that he was now in charge. Needed to get winches repaired, only place to do it was in Hamburg. Towed barge there. Sorted out problem, explains how. Finished the pipeline at about 5 kilometres a day, good going.
(0:36:08) Describes challenge of laying pipeline in relatively deep waters north-east of Shetland. Number of technical issues, but went very well, came ashore at Shetland not far from Sullom Voe. At same time Shell laying Brent line to same place. Operator of Ninian was Chevron, Glen Shurman was boss of Chevron at time, nice guy. After pipeline laid, number of issues involved, funny political arrangement at time. Although Chevron operated field, had a co-chairman from BP - had to be a Brit, chap called Jack Birks. So when had meeting of Ninian committee, had to remind Burkes he was chairman and was not there as a BP representative, Butler was. Endeared Butler to Sherman. Partly through him BP was persuaded to put Butler in charge of Sullom Voe. Explains more about relationship between the different companies.
(0:40:30) Ninian Field straddled licences of several companies. Chevron biggest share, BP big as well, Ranger Oil and Murphy Oil as well, along with others. Complicated agreement about who owned what and who did what. Can't remember how BP came to be appointed as operator of pipeline, before his time. Seemed to work smoothly in Ninian between the various companies, once agreement was reached. May have been problems in other fields, refers to Forties, which was 96% BP, and Shell and Esso, who had rest, never interfered. Companies get grown up about this and operate in interests of the whole, not like back in Trinidad.
(0:44:33) Sullom Voe Terminal project. History - each company operating off Shetland originally intended to each build their own terminal facilities, but Shetland Council objected, not wanting terminals all over the place. Enter council chief executive Ian Clarke. He was absolutely right this was nonsense, and it was agreed there would be one terminal at Sullom Voe, operated by Shell. But Shell ran into problems with Brent, soured relations with local council, and went to the Government and said wanted someone else to take over. Government approached BP, who took it on. Shell had done layout plan for terminal. Lots of tedious negotiations over setting up Sullom Voe Association, supposed to involve Shell, BP and Shetland Island Council. BP designated to build the thing, and total involvement appeared to be 2 lawyers, Bob Mennie and Alan Tweedie - not engineers. Butler did not think they understood magnitude of job. One time in life he angled for a job. Aware of political difficulties with local council.
(0:48:44) While doing Ninian pipeline job, Butler went to meeting chaired by Matt Linning with all the partners at Sullom Voe, worst meeting in his life, people shouting. This would be Autumn 1975. Sat and listened, as the new boy. Agreed to meet in two days' time. Just before it Matt Linning called him and asked him to take it. He arrived on scene with Shell, Esso, Mobil and every other company at daggers drawn with BP and Shetland. Decided this was not sensible way of going on. Somehow Glen Sherman got hold of David Steel of BP, and thinks he suggested Butler take charge of it. Butler designated to take charge with one geophysicist and a secretary as his staff. Brought in other people involved. Set up project team in London for engineering detail. Decided first problem apart from soothing other companies, was to build relationship with Shetland Islands Council, which had been badly soured by Shell. Had not reckoned on Ian Clarke. When Butler first met Ian Clarke, he was very suspicious of Butler. Clarke was a very dour character, Butler got to like him, convinced oil companies a bunch of rogues. Hard work building a relationship. Clarke wanted maximum benefit to Shetland from the oil industry, really would have liked us to go somewhere else. Clarke was under pressure from the government to get Sullom Voe built, because till that happened fields could not go into production. Mentions Labour government and Tony Benn and Dickson Mabon. Clarke under pressure from them that Shetland only logical place to bring oil in. Also much smaller Flotta Terminal in Orkney. Butler had to build relationship with Ian Clarke in order to get anything done, as council were the planning authority. Sullom Voe agreement that Shetland would get five cents a barrel that went through terminal. So people there wanted it to happen, but not at any price, don't blame them. Interesting problem with storage tanks. BP had good tank designer called Barry Denholm. Shetland not happy with standard, went to national body, who went to their expert - Barry Denholm. Cavern option not practical. Eventually accepted this, but everything came with a quid pro quo, like building a new road. Had to get agreement with oil companies to do these things, to get permission for terminal. Eventually had some laughs with Ian Clarke about what went on. Would have to go to explain to Brent crowd and then to Ninian crowd, and thought he was getting it right when each accused him of being too close to the other.
(0:59:50) Government dimension. Important point. Government pressing very hard. Engineering had not been done. When building and designing at same time, gets very expensive. Logical way would have been to stop for 18 months to design and then build it, but politically not possible, would have been out if he had suggested it. So more expensive than it should have been. Also at bad time for relations in construction business. Took trade union reps to Shetland, lot of alcohol taken. Took them to Shetland to show site, and how miserable it would be there because of weather. But patriotic sentiments that they had to do better, so brought all union agreements, apart from T&G, into one. Had 14 unions there. Spent a lot of time with national union officers. Had only one strike right at beginning. So shut whole site down, sent everyone away. Within a day or two people said they did not want to shut site down, well paid. So union leaders weeded out guys they did not like, or troublemakers, never had trouble again with industrial disputes. Would not make agreements with shop stewards, only national officials. That paid handsomely, became model for how a large complicated site is run, from union point of view, fascinating experience. It was agreed work would not stop when it rained, otherwise nothing would get done in Shetland. Huge construction camps. SIC said not to employ Shetlanders, could not afford fishermen, a handful of local women employed, so had to bring in thousands of workers. Would try not to do another job involving 35 partners. Payments to Shetland Islands Council (1:09:14) Disruption payments. Five cents a barrel of oil through terminal. Hazy on details now. Built power station as part of project, also for power for northern part of Shetland. Tarmac built gas-fired power station in incredibly short time. Great problem of shipping workforce in and out, come December it was like the Berlin airlift. Distance to airport an issue, wanted to develop Scatsta, but council kept saying no. Finally agreed, and in 3 weeks turned it into a working airport. Dan Air operated there. Solved a lot of problems.
(1:13:55) Mistake of oil industry blundering into Shetland with arrogant attitude. Caused him huge problems to resolve that problem, antipathy on both sides. Recalls incident of flying to Shetland with Dickson Mabon, who was vituperative towards Shetlanders, accused him of "going native". Grew very fond of Shetland and the Shetlanders when he got to know them. Had plane to himself, a Kingair, had to deal with companies in London and Shetlanders in Lerwick. Travelling to and from Shetland twice a week. Kingair could operate in dark, sometimes did trip three times a week. BP gave him incredibly free hand, and support.
(ENDS 1:17:21)
SESSION 2.
(0:00:00) Sullom Voe Environmental Advisory Group. Based on experience in Alaska. Reps from Brent Group and Ninian Group, himself, and Prof George Dunnett from Aberdeen University. Binding on everyone to take notice of its advice, smoothed relationship with Shetland and council, also represented on the group. Concern about water discharged from tankers to treatment plant to sea. Had less oil than natural runoff from peat. Showed local fishing community that it was quite harmless, convinced them by drinking it in front of them. Colour of tanks. No problem with wildlife, till tanker had accident and released bunker oil into sea. Fuel oil formed mousse, difficult to pick up. Construction issues with wildlife? Can't recall any.
(0:05:20) BNOC, relationship with. Set up by Tony Benn, thought national oil company would give country more knowledge. Butler thought a good idea for banana republic, but redundant for Britain which had BP and Shell. Unfair competition, not great admirer of BNOC. Recounts BNOC and Exxon incident, hilarious when both boards insisted on visiting Sullom Voe on same day, but did not want to meet each other. But arrived in wrong order, ended up with both boards mixed up together, lunch together, all got on famously. Ian Clarke and Basil Butler had laughs about it.
(0:08:40) In many ways, Sullom Voe his best achievement, a bit special, his baby. 1978, terminal not quite complete, was moved away to Aberdeen to take over from retiring Matt Linning, general manager for North Sea for BP. Recounts takeover. Responsible for BP operations in British and Norwegian sectors. Very busy time, still installing Forties and Magnus fields, and others, and finally opening of Sullom Voe by the Queen and Prince Philip, unexpectedly accompanied by King Olaf of Norway. Security scare on opening day, small explosion at power station. Did not hear it, should not have happened, security very tight, Queen nowhere near it. Attributed to IRA. Surprised not more problems like that? Was issue during construction because many workers involved from Northern Ireland. Very careful, one or two people detected who had to be got out of the way. Unions very helpful looking at this problem. All workers had to go through course at Bellshill in Glasgow, set up with union help, to let them know what Shetland was like and what was expected. Unions made sure that people that came to us were acceptable to them, they would never admit it. Troublemakers weeded out at Bellshill.
(0:14:49) Wider problems, challenges and risks facing operators in North Sea at that time. Nobody had built platforms in sort of conditions in North Sea, depth and wave force. Designed platforms to cope with 100-year waves, saw about 5 or 6 in first year. Platforms built in very conservative manner. Technology partly brought from very different Gulf of Mexico environment, so over conservative designs chosen. Refers to adding more steel not necessarily any good, Alexander Keilland rig disaster, capsizing. Similar conversion they were doing for Buchan field caused us a lot of concern as result. As an operator, confesses to worrying when there was real gale blowing as to whether they had got it right. Forties platform. Design of platforms, in light of Piper Alpha disaster, could have been done differently. Huge concern for safety of workforce, idea of separate platform for accommodation came later, probably good idea. On Forties platforms, elaborate system where whole system could be shut down electronically from Aberdeen. Also anyone thought there was a problem could shut it down. Recalls incident when shutdown caused because of flare reflecting on puddle. Refers to Roger Lyons, union representative, taken to see Forties platforms, and came back convinced of their safety.
(0:21:44) Thought those platforms might last 20 years, recovery has proved to be better. Did not think people would want to work offshore for so long, but they did quite happily. Explains why oil companies decided to explore in North Sea, despite its difficulties as an oil province. Originated from discovery of gas in Holland. Then in waters off Holland and East Anglia. Then decided to look further north. Hamilton Brothers first to find oil in North Sea, not huge, but significant. Forties then spotted on seismic. Source rocks were there.
(0:24:26) Economic viability of Forties did not look good at first, but price of oil went up and changed that. BP borrowed money from banks to develop Forties and got paid back remarkably quickly. Licences picked up from BNOC off Shetland, Clair Field discovered around 1983, still not fully in production yet. Personal interest in naming of Clair Field. Ex plains he agreed to suggestion of naming it after Scottish saint Clair because that is also his daughter's name, albeit spelt differently. Rise in oil price making fields viable, but forecasting oil price is difficult. 1973 Yom Kippur War altered economics of Forties Field. Oil companies should never overestimate their oil reserves, so perhaps estimates are conservative.
(0:29:07) Technological advances that were needed to develop North Sea. Gulf of Mexico technology involved, but cold sea and constant pounding in North Sea meant lessons had to be learned. Britain has done pretty well in the technology respect, but don't think the manufacturing and construction yards have taken up opportunities they had in beginning. Offshore Supplies Office in early days leant very heavily on the oil companies to have things made in the UK, don't see much being manufactured now in UK yards, thinks that is a pity. No reason why yards in Scotland and around country could not do what's being done in Korea. Argument is labour costs cheaper there, but BP built competitively for Forties and Magnus in this country. Forecasting accuracy by oil companies for developing North Sea fields?
(0:32:14) Feels it was pretty good, except most projects cost more than estimated. Additional problems to deal with, tendency to underestimate cost of project. Very good technological developments in this country, like tension leg platforms. BP went in for steel, Shell for concrete platforms. Thinks UK did pretty well. Money squandered in early days. Whatever you wanted for Forties you got. When Butler arrived he started to row back on this. But huge pressure to get production as soon as possible, did lead to some bad practices in early days. Designed as we went along in Sullom Voe, not sane way, but politically essential at time. Thoughts on BP takeover of Britoil, and if it should have been retained as an independent oil company.
(0:36:13) Confesses his part in this, largely his initiative BP took over Britoil. Britoil had acreage, but not much money. 1988, on board of BP, could see share price of Britoil, and commitments to drill wells, but no money to do it. One morning said to finance director that Britoil share price had gone down, why don't we go for it? Question of Government's Golden Share, which allowed government to appoint directors of Britoil. Decided too many people knew about deal, and so made hostile bid. Long negotiation with Department of Energy about how many wells BP would commit to drilling. Thought BNOC as entity was damaging in first place, and then had a lot of acreage they could not handle. Britoil board reconstituted in Glasgow, great and good of Scotland there, and me. Did not know about oil industry at all, it was a farce. What was Britoil was absorbed into BP, pleads guilty to that. One problem after was dealing with assets of Britoil, office in Glasgow had walls faced in marble from South Dakota, and chairman's Rolls Royce - cost five thousand pounds to replace seat his dog had chewed up. Recounts how he negotiated a lesser deal for chairman losing his job. Got him to agree to much less for severance. Involved getting a picture from the office wall.
(ENDS 0:46:04)
SESSION 3.
(0:00:00) Government involvement and strategies for North Sea oil industry. One great achievement devising licensing system. Commitment to carry out exploration. Got development of North Sea moving very quickly. Strong policy of encouraging British industrial involvement. Ran into problems on Norwegian side because Norwegians resisted having BP build everything in Britain. OSO [Offshore Supplies Office] pressure. BP protest, OSO backed off. Lot of modules built in Britain, though.
(0:03:47) Working relationship between government and industry was tense. Made no difference which party was in power. All a pain in the neck on tax changes, Conservatives worst for rapid tax changes. Civil Service preparedness for North Sea, did not do too badly. Sometimes civil servants more trouble than the government ministers. Did not recall conflict between government departments over oil developments. Level of government involvement - more or less?
(0:07:37) Big thing for any government at the time, we all wanted things to go quickly. Keen to get maximum tax from us, sometimes changing things during project, changing its economics. No public feeling against what we were doing. Operators opinion of Offshore Supplies Office - sympathy with what they were trying to do, think they were trying to do the right thing. Difficult sometimes, but not impossible, relationship improved with time.
(0:11:01) Government policy on control and pricing of gas - real bind for us existence of British Gas, monopoly on buying all gas, struck hard bargains with British companies, but paid Norwegians more. We pressed for interconnector to Continent, so European market, not one dominated by British Gas. Did not happen because of opposition of Dennis Rook of British Gas. Effect of government intervention taxes and prices, petroleum revenue tax complex, affected industry adversely, but not unreasonably. Tax changes most unsettling through 1970s and 80s. One or two fields became non-commercial for a time, mentions Andrew Field.
(0:15:50) BP use of British suppliers, considerable extent, most platforms built at Nigg Bay by Brown and Root, other yards round country, some sourced from Spain and France, most modules from UK at least in early days. Lot of pressure to use UK suppliers, had to justify not using them to OSO, sometimes they would put pressure on a yard if it was too expensive. Happy to use British suppliers if possible. Scottish industry understood needs, Burntisland, Nigg and Clyde. Not always resounding success, though. "Banana" tanker built, not straight. Scott Lithgow yard, got some North Sea opportunities on a plate, but did not grab opportunity to extent they should have. Management did not know what was going on in their own yards. Went broke in end. Management was dreadful, Scott Lithgow yard on strike, management did not seem to know why, Basil Butler went on walkabout, found real reason was loos had frozen up. Recalls going to North Sea platforms, and going round chatting to workers, find more about what is really going on than reading reports. Pressure to use British yards did increase costs, but not materially. Expectations of economic benefits were exaggerated, thought UK was going to have golden era, but at peak was only 6% of GNP, so not that large. Lot got swallowed up in government deficits. Don't think benefits were wasted, used to meet problems of time. Norway and Shetland put money away for future, that's fine. But Norway small, so not fair comparison.
(0:24:04) Does not think Britain should have had special oil fund like Norway, or Shetland. More important to solve real problems at that time, rather than stashing it away in a fund. Aberdeen's response to the industry good. Thought Robert Gordon's (RGIT, now Robert Gordon's University) seized the opportunity, Aberdeen University did not, disappointing, feeling that industry was here today, gone tomorrow.
(0:27:12) Found Aberdeen a welcoming place for the oil industry. Loved living in Aberdeen, never felt outsider or rejected. Close relationship with Chief Constable, could not recall his name.
(0:29:20) Took over worldwide responsibility for BP Exploration and Production in 1982. Best job in world. North Sea still important part of remit. US added later on. Busy in Indonesia, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, Canada, Egypt, Alaska. Interesting for political ins and outs. Negotiations in Indonesia, going well, then stopped. British Ambassador told him all to do with the Multi Fibre agreement, between ASEAN countries and EU, re textiles. Because of this would not give licence to EU company, till resolved. Spent great deal of time in China negotiating offshore licences.
(0:32:50) Environmental issues given lot of consideration at BP. Talks of Alaska and delicate ecosystem there. Took that attitude on to Sullom Voe. Wytch Farm in Dorset, biggest onshore field in Europe, no one knows it's there. BP got plaudits for that. Talks of CO2 and climate change, expresses scepticism. Dramatic changes to Britain's climate, even in historical times, Romans growing vines in Northumberland etc. CO2 essential ingredient of life. Sceptical of its dangers. Does not think our descendants will suffer because of our use of fossil fuel, admits he is in minority in that view. Cynical about researchers getting money if they mention climate change.
(0:37:10) Views on Gulf of Mexico Macondo blowout and huge oil spill involving BP in 2010 [the Deepwater Horizon oil spill], effect on then CEO Tony Hayward. Wants to keep views to himself, appalled, horrified, it shouldn't have happened. Did great job in circumstances, picking up pieces, but should never have blown up, many things went wrong simultaneously. American and British employees and public relations, thinks PR was abysmal, wonders where Chairman was. Tony Hayward hung out to dry. Nice guy, did very good job, but not over that issue. Thought American Government behaviour was appalling, would not have done it to an American company. Big issues in his career overall were Sullom Voe, BP thought Butler did all right because moved rapidly up after that. Being involved in North Sea, acquisition of Standard Oil of Ohio in 1985, explains about that and Prudhoe Bay in Alaska, and subsequent buyout. Class action for $20m. Awful. Made rich lawyers even richer, think lot of American legal system stinks. Not rule of law - rule of lawyers. Britoil interesting episode, loved running BP Exploration. Realised more an operator than a director, by instinct, enjoyed what went on in oilfields onshore and offshore.
(0:44:45) Low points. Worst point in life in Kuwait second time I was there. Engineer did not follow instructions, explosion killed five people. I trusted that Arab engineer to do things properly, he didn't, let me down. But you don't lose all responsibility. A bad day. Always gave priority when he ran BP to the drilling department. Riskiest, need best people and technology, as you can see from Macondo when it goes wrong. Ethics of BP in way they went about doing their business, any lessons? In BP for 33 years. Never saw anything done unethical or underhand. Spent 11 years with Murphy Oil and would say the same, very ethical company as well. BP very meticulous. Every significant manager had to write personal letter to Chairman every year saying he had not seen or become aware of any irregularity in terms of honesty or integrity. Taken very seriously.
(0:47:58) Working in oil industry had huge effect on personal life. Lived on oilfields for years. My children all grew up in oilfield camps, all looked on Kuwait as home, England a bit strange to them. Grew up very internationally, friends all different nationalities. Mixed race friends. He did not find demands of job a burden, loved it all. Recalls Palestinians who manned switchboards in Kuwait. Travel in later years very demanding, but liked it and did not mind it. Privileged to do the job, would do it all over again. Lucky to be there in Kuwait, Alaska and North Sea when everything was growing, never in deadbeat operation. Been back to Sullom Voe in 2005, when Commodore of Royal Western Yacht Club in Plymouth. He and wife went to Lerwick, and had tour of Sullom Voe by the then manager, who knew of him. Not as busy as it had been in his time, but doing transhipping from large to smaller tankers, which had not known about. Talk of building new pipeline from Claire, new lease of life, but production from Forties and Brent a fraction of what it was.
(0:54:36) Future of Britain's North Sea oil industry thoughts. Go on for many years yet. Huge investment in Clair Field, one of his grandsons working on it. Also shallow formations missed first time round, opportunities there, with existing infrastructure making them economic, work for next 40-50 years. Tells story of arriving in Trinidad in 1954, met old timers there. Asked him what he was doing joining oil industry, which they believed would only last another 15 years. People will drive petrol cars in preference to electric for years to come, and how are you going to run aircraft without oil? Wonderful high density energy source. Notable events for North Sea oil industry over last few decades. Brent Spar and Shell, environmental issues over Shell's attempt to dump it in Atlantic. Industry has to spend a lot of time explaining. If you explain, you discredit those who are being dishonest, Greenpeace had to retract claims over amount of oil left on Spar. Thinks problem of decommissioning is huge, Treasury in 1970s should have listened, created Sinking Fund which was tax deductible. Major companies concerned that smaller partners might disappear, leaving bigger ones to decommission. Can't work out who is going to pay for it now. Now most of the fields, platforms in hands of small companies. Can they afford decommissioning? Mentions Magnus Field. Nearly did not get put in place. Explains in detail what happened with piles and Brown and Root, some 200-ton solid steel piles fell out, hit seabed and bent. Tugs used to drag platform, hoping more piles would not fall out, might have capsized platform. Fortunately no more fell out, but platform now a hundred yards from where it was intended to be. Weather fortunately good. Another bad moment. He was suffering from a temperature of 104 degrees at time.
(1:04:17) Occidental's Piper Alpha platform disaster in 1988, BP attitudes afterwards. We said make sure everything that is removed is put back properly, but disaster did not change things very much (for BP). Never thought Occidental's operations were very safe anyway. Explains why. Recounts story of meeting someone who had worked for Occidental and told him he left because Piper Alpha was not safe. Surprised him. Tells how he went out to an Occidental platform once with Prince Philip. Armand Hammer of Occidental made long rambling speech, and Prince replied in three or four sentences. Changes to platform design after Piper Alpha, separating accommodation and processing modules? Says that came after his time. But whole question of safety is about attitude of mind. Published paper on Safety First, Profit Last. Safety not a cost, but a benefit. We did things better on this side of the North Sea than the Norwegians. Norwegians prescriptive. While Health and Safety Executive in Britain is not fussing about details. Demonstrating safety case. Safety not expensive, just getting right people running it and getting the right attitude in the workforce.
(1:11:24) Later career. Jumped from being client to being contractor. Appointed chairman of Brown and Root in 1991. Ran Royal Naval Dockyard in Devonport. Asked to act as chairman there while issue of where Trident submarines were to be serviced was sorted out. Six month assignment turned into six years. Dealt with nuclear submarines and surface warships. North Sea experience not much use, except in general management issues. Then non-exec director of Murphy Oil in the US. Career came to an end in 2002 after 48 years. 13 years later still miss it, would do it all over again. Never get bored in the oil industry, so varied - drilling, construction, politics, economics.
(ENDS 1:15:23) |