Brent Alpha & Brent Charlie
Top tier industry here. I only really wanted to put a report up because I feel like I could look at photographs of these rigs all day. I've been eagerly awaiting the four-part special from @Slayaaaa for years! Although we have only visited two of the Brent foursome, they were some of our most memorable Urbex adventures when we were 16-18, and although it's faded into a blur over the years, it's been really nice to work through the vintage, and mostly ass, footage we shot back then and reminisce on two nights spent deep inside Hartlepool's scrapyard.
Trawling through my camera roll from six years ago (!), I had to work hard to find out when we'd first come across the rigs. It had been before we made it into 28 NP I think, so looking back, it does seem that there was a hole in the pipes even back then! However, it was easy to hold off on the Brent rigs so nobody got into trouble, particularly with the knowledge that another was to come. Thankfully, the platforms survived any social media onslaught, which makes them way more special. I mean, their scrapping was alllllll over the news. Nowadays, things would have gone very differently. For both, access was a breeze which also would've meant lots of trouble in the current climate; the scrapyard very dead after hours and despite in 2024, a much taller set of reeds than we had remembered, it was fairly simple to find ourselves beneath the staggering structure and find a way up. It never looked too big as you gained ground on the platform, but when you first reached the topside, it is an almighty sight; a dystopian city of industry, engineered ingeniously to appear crammed, but also spacious at the same time. Both interiors were left untouched, still full of equipment and belongings, and it was always a maze working your way around in torchlight over four or five levels of admin, communications, recreation and accommodation. Once you'd occupied the hours of darkness and you enter daybreak, it was time to head up to the helipad to gauge the full scale of the rig during sunrise, whilst workers below are still snoozing. Surrounded by industry, and assaulted by coastal winds, some of my fondest memories were up on those helipads looking around at my friends stood frozen with their hands positioned around their tripods in case the long exposure was disrupted by said winds, wondering how on earth we got in this situation. Although, from what I remember, it was getting quite busy below us during our Alpha visit, I was glad to get some hours of sun on Charlie to wander around the deck goggling at the rusty, redundant machinery. Then, after taking up and beyond the limit of the piss, the worker accommodation below starting to hustle and bustle, it was time to descend suddenly rushed, even though you had been meandering for hours, knowing that any time over the limit was bound to get you sighted and affect the simplistic entry for anyone else. Visited with @DustySensorPhotography and @jtza
Brent Alpha, July 2020
Brent Alpha was installed in 1976 as the only steel-jacket platform in the four-platform Brent Field, 186 kilometres north-east of Shetland. Production began in 1978 and continued until November 2014. Its 17,000-tonne topsides and 10,000-tonne upper jacket were removed in 2020, then dismantled and recycled onshore.
]
To be continued.
Top tier industry here. I only really wanted to put a report up because I feel like I could look at photographs of these rigs all day. I've been eagerly awaiting the four-part special from @Slayaaaa for years! Although we have only visited two of the Brent foursome, they were some of our most memorable Urbex adventures when we were 16-18, and although it's faded into a blur over the years, it's been really nice to work through the vintage, and mostly ass, footage we shot back then and reminisce on two nights spent deep inside Hartlepool's scrapyard.
Trawling through my camera roll from six years ago (!), I had to work hard to find out when we'd first come across the rigs. It had been before we made it into 28 NP I think, so looking back, it does seem that there was a hole in the pipes even back then! However, it was easy to hold off on the Brent rigs so nobody got into trouble, particularly with the knowledge that another was to come. Thankfully, the platforms survived any social media onslaught, which makes them way more special. I mean, their scrapping was alllllll over the news. Nowadays, things would have gone very differently. For both, access was a breeze which also would've meant lots of trouble in the current climate; the scrapyard very dead after hours and despite in 2024, a much taller set of reeds than we had remembered, it was fairly simple to find ourselves beneath the staggering structure and find a way up. It never looked too big as you gained ground on the platform, but when you first reached the topside, it is an almighty sight; a dystopian city of industry, engineered ingeniously to appear crammed, but also spacious at the same time. Both interiors were left untouched, still full of equipment and belongings, and it was always a maze working your way around in torchlight over four or five levels of admin, communications, recreation and accommodation. Once you'd occupied the hours of darkness and you enter daybreak, it was time to head up to the helipad to gauge the full scale of the rig during sunrise, whilst workers below are still snoozing. Surrounded by industry, and assaulted by coastal winds, some of my fondest memories were up on those helipads looking around at my friends stood frozen with their hands positioned around their tripods in case the long exposure was disrupted by said winds, wondering how on earth we got in this situation. Although, from what I remember, it was getting quite busy below us during our Alpha visit, I was glad to get some hours of sun on Charlie to wander around the deck goggling at the rusty, redundant machinery. Then, after taking up and beyond the limit of the piss, the worker accommodation below starting to hustle and bustle, it was time to descend suddenly rushed, even though you had been meandering for hours, knowing that any time over the limit was bound to get you sighted and affect the simplistic entry for anyone else. Visited with @DustySensorPhotography and @jtza
Brent Alpha, July 2020
Brent Alpha was installed in 1976 as the only steel-jacket platform in the four-platform Brent Field, 186 kilometres north-east of Shetland. Production began in 1978 and continued until November 2014. Its 17,000-tonne topsides and 10,000-tonne upper jacket were removed in 2020, then dismantled and recycled onshore.
]
To be continued.
