FOR THOSE IN PERIL ON THE SEA

The Beryl A, Mobil's giant platform in the Beryl oil field of the North Sea. The sinking was, of course, intentional when the Beryl A arrived on location; in fact, the flooding of the base cells of her three giant concrete legs was controlled by a computer in her control room, hooked to 150 sensors. The full 68,000 HP of the tugs was brought into play to keep the man-made island steady in the strong sea currents as three massive 16-ft steel dowels extending from the legs were driven into the sea bed under the weight of the platform. It took two days for the platform itself to penetrate to its final depth of 15 feet into the sea bed.

The three 310-ft concrete columns forming the legs were constructed in the Norwegian port of Stavanger. They were then submerged and the 15,000 ton steel deck was raised atop the three legs last June in what was the heaviest lift in history. But the record did not stand very long; it was broken by the lift of the entire giant structure to towing level.

On July 4, during the summer window in the vicious North Sea weather, the Beryl A was towed out of port, and going at 2 knots (2.5 mph), it reached its destination on July 9. At present, a work force of 400 men are installing the 197-ft drilling rigs and performing other final installations. Two of the legs will serve as storage tanks for 900,000 barrels of crude coming from up to 40 wells (the third leg is used as a utility shaft).

The construction and installation of the Beryl A (in only 2 years) is considered one of the major engineering achievements of this century; the towing alone was probably the biggest single marine venture in history.

Yet few people knew what was going on; what modern journalist would be interested in an event with no sex, no violence, no doomsday horrors, no ideology? Indeed, while the American press was absorbed with the fine details of the fate of Patty Hearst, Squeaky Fromme and other overindulged brats, another maritime drama was being played out in the Arctic.

The Alaska pipeline would now be pumping 1.2 million b/d if the Sierra Club and Audubon Society had not tried to be so good to you; it is now scheduled to go into operation in the spring of 1977. But even that term is now in danger. Supplies by sea can get through only in 2 to 3 week s in August, when last year's ice in the Beaufort Sea has melted and this year's has not yet formed. 47 barges with vital supplies were waiting for the ice to melt last August, but with each passing day hopes faded, until it was clear that this year there would be no ice window. Hundreds of millions of dollars were at stake, as was an additional year of delay of the entire pipeline. About half the barges were sent back when there appeared to be little hope for them; most of them carried freight that can be shipped by rail and truck from Seward.

But 25 of the barges made it through the ice in early October, when the US Coast Guard's icebreaker Burton Island cut a path round Point Barrow, the northernmost point of the US, and two coast guard cutters assisted in breaking up the ice as it formed in the final dash of the barges to Prudhoe Bay.

As we go to press, we have no news of four more barges that were recalled again from Port Clarence and Kotzebue to try to get through. If they made it,* the total would be 29 out of the original 47, and that would significantly improve the chances of the oil beginning to flow in the spring of 1977 after all.

*Stop Press: They didn't.