Graythorp, Graythorp, Hartlepool, UK, 1972 (b/w photo)

Contractor, Laing Pipelines Offshore; Photographer, John Laing and Son Ltd; A view of a crane lift taking place at Graythorp 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. At the centre of this photograph is a gantry with a 509 revolver crane on top of the platform.