300 kilometers off the tip of scotland lies the brent oil and gas field this is the story of brent's four iconic platforms from the world firsts of construction it was comparable to putting a man on the moon life on board you're reliant on each other it's very much like a family and finally the end of production potential personnel then charlie will shortly sign off told with historic archive out here we're doing what's never been done before and by those who were there it's an absolute privilege to have been part of this team for 33 years derek deak child has commuted by helicopter to one of the most hostile places on the planet the brentfield the brentfield is being decommissioned and deek will be closing the last operational platform brent charlie these iconic engineering structures have helped transform britain but their story starts half a century earlier in the early 1970s britain faces an energy crisis tensions in the middle east mean oil supply to the uk is under threat when i was a child we had power cuts my children now don't even know what a power cut is so people wanted to have far more dependency on security or supply the key to security lies with the recently discovered brent oil field in the north sea developing it requires one of the greatest feats in engineering history it was a frontier location much harsher conditions bigger waves higher wind speeds really remote locations the task was how can we develop this field as quickly as we possibly can the undertaking is too costly for one company alone what's needed is an unlikely partnership michelle and esso which was part of exxon are competitors in in the course of their normal business entered into a 50 50 joint venture a relationship that's probably unprecedented in corporate the terminals all the offshore infrastructure all the capabilities this needed big organization which big management capability was big engineering capability to do so within a year shell and exxon drop an audacious plan building four giant oil platforms and there was no one place where you could do that all together so pieces of the platforms they were made in a number of different yards michelle had to reach out to norway as well as to scotland to enable the platforms to be built i grew up in the north of scotland between two of the big fabrication yards and i remember seeing these colossal structures taking shape you would see them basically grow onto the skyline towering over 200 meters the rigs push engineering prowess to the limit these are absolutely incredible large platforms some were made of concrete again never done before were kind of world first at the time the brents were amongst the heaviest objects that had moved on on the surface of the earth [Music] i remember watching on tv that the tugs were trying to harness this big offshore jacket into place and every single one of the managers had their fingers crossed [Music] if something goes wrong in that the platform can sink to the bottom of the seat and the whole thing is lost and you you're back to square one incredibly just six years after the discovery of north sea oil the brent platforms alpha bravo charlie and delta are ready to start drilling in terms of putting brent out there and what that achieved it was comparable to putting a man on the moon derrick childs has been coming to the brentfield for most of his working life [Music] this is his last two-week stint before charlie ends production for over 40 years tens of thousands have worked here living on a platform not much wider than a football field brent's very often described as a town it's got people all doing different jobs different roles but all dependent on each other at the same time it is like a family you're working together very closely so very much a home away from home a family away from family you are obviously leaving your family at home now you will end up missing key events so you miss birthdays you miss births there's various things that you accept that you're likely to miss but if something's not going quite so right at home then that can be very difficult to mentally deal with and to assist your loved ones at home when actually you're on a platform you need to be happy you also need to be able to be comfortable living away from home ask any crew member what's the key to happiness on a rig and you'll hear the same answer it really is the quality of the food having something nice to eat especially if you've been out in the cold all day you're physically working that really makes your day the chap came along and had four t-bone stinks and he came back and had another turn with all the trimmings and he devoured a lot [Music] get the recipe wrong and you could face a mutiny there's one particular time when the brand of ice cream changed there was such an uproar from all of the workforce and some considerable diplomacy was required to ensure that people didn't down tools the canteen may provide some comfort but outside it's a different story in the winter you can be stepping off into 55 60 mile an hour winds when a big wave hits one of these platforms it actually causes it to move you get the bang and the shutter from the wave but you also get a sway as well takes a bit of getting used to does feel like man against the elements working on a platform demands a heightened awareness of health and safety today the team practice a worst case scenario fire on the rig all personnel please report the investor station the crew practice techniques for locating crap colleagues in smoke-filled corridors today's drill is a critical reminder of how dangerous life out here can be when you're working offshore you're not just working on your normal construction site or a building site you've got many hazards all around you such as jet fires dropped objects ship collisions helicopters and explosions one of the big things that people need to realize is we are so far away from a hospital do you need to be switched on the dangers aren't just on the rig the north sea can be equally unforgiving the mass of water is at about six degrees in the winter so if you end up in the water it doesn't take very long if you don't have any sort of protection for you to be into hypothermic state in the 40 years that brent has been offshore 20 people have lost their lives on work-related accidents it's just such a god-awful thing to go through that you know that stays with you and you you know you you really learn sounds dreadful but you really learn a lot from those things so we have an ultimate goal and a duty to protect everybody and make sure that our systems and practices are as strong as they can be and that's really been a big development over the decades working on brent as the film archive shows safety considerations were very different in the 1970s when i look back at the film you feel shocked as to how people are coming to work back then you know you've got your oim sitting with a shirt and tie on the helicopter and he almost is wearing just a mac today every worker is equipped with state-of-the-art survival equipment and safety is the concern of everyone we work at every single level from the ground all the way up through the management and everybody has a voice everyone is empowered back on brett charlie the decommissioning is gathering pace barry meldrum and his team are responsible for recovering and dismantling childish kilometers of well piping some of the the wells that have been down there for a longer period and they're not and the tubing is not in such a good condition but in deep within the well for decades takes its toll on the pipes [Music] so that makes our our job a lot more difficult in the recovery but this one is a touchwide relatively textbook and it is generally in quite good condition with brent it's not just well piping that's proved critical to keeping the uk's oil and gas flowing [Music] by the late 70s brent has become a victim of its own success producing more oil and gas than it could bring ashore brent was producing more than 500 000 barrels a day while that's filling up a large oil tanker every day with production ramping up tankers alone can't keep up with delivery so you know pipelines had to be led fast [Music] we were going into the most hostile of territories into the deepest of waters this was done at a time before computers people use slide rules and pieces of paper and written calculations as well [Music] laying the pipes requires one of the largest engineering vessels of its day the semac i had the good fortune of being shown around the cmac and i was absolutely staggered at how big this vessel was that was a huge piece of infrastructure to put in this sort of deep water pipeline the 121 metre long ship lays over 12 000 sections of piping in under two years so with the advent of the ability to lay large diameter pipelines that really opened up the opportunity of producing more for brent and in terms of the contribution that it has made to the uk economy it's been fundamental [Music] attention all personnel attention all personnel for your information rent charlie will shortly sign off in charlie's operations room alan laurie and his team are about to bring 40 years of operations to a close we're here to mark the end of an era and celebrate the cessation of production of brent charlie i have to say that i stand here with very mixed emotions all great things do have to come to a natural end on shore william lindsey joins an online call with other brent colleagues past and present to witness the event we've been thinking and planning for this event for a very very long time so in that respect it's not really a surprise but i just think the the magnitude of the event um it's now really coming to an end i'll now hand you over to derrick child who is the longest-serving sherlock staff member on brent charlie and he is the honours of shutting down the top side processing facility for the last time derek [Music] all stations all stations this is the brent charlie rent charlie gas export shut down this marks the end of brent charlie's production [Music] i thought i'll get my quake out and i'll toast brent for all the production people dismantling brent charlie will take another two years but brent's legacy lives on [Music] there's no doubt at all that oil and gas went a long way to save the uk's economy [Music] brent has given us tens of thousands of jobs over the years a contribution to the uk's infrastructure to schools to hospitals to roads being built it fueled our cars it provided gas that heats our homes it has been a true true diamond in terms of its contribution to the uk its economy and the kind of well-being of the people in the country and for those who work there it's changed their lives forever i think a lot of the people i worked with significantly influenced who i am now today people have built strong bonds strong friendships with each other the thing i'm most going to miss are the people and it's an absolute privilege to have been part of this team [Music] [Music] you