2-847-667 - Historic England Archive/Heritage Images

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.