ABSTRACT
The Forties field, developed by British Petroleum, was the first major oilfield to be discovered in the North Sea (1970). The strategy adopted by BP during and after development of the production system of that field, comprising offshore platforms, submarine and land pipelands, storage and export facilities, included full environmental impact assessment. The safety of people and their environment was a foremost concern in implementation of this major offshore development, in which the underlying theme was one of reasonable compromise and rational debate.
