The Deck Assembly Building (or Deck Building) was 122 m long x 240 m wide and covered an area of 8 acres. The fabrication space within the building comprised of 8 Bays of 30 m wide x 100 m long x 30.5 m high. One face of the 240 m wide structure was open offering access for equipment and materials to each of the bays, with 30 overhead cranes providing the bulk of handling activity.
The building design was essentially a copy of an Assembly Building located at McDermott’s home Yard in Louisiana on the Gulf of Mexico. This design offered the capacity to fabricate topsides modules of a size and weight which aligned with the offshore lift capability of Heavy Lift Vessels available at the time in the 1970’s. During this period, North Sea drilling and production platforms were assembled on location in the offshore field by lifting a number of Modules onto a Support Frame installed on top of the Jacket structure. Using this approach, the final assembly, hook up and commissioning of the Modules consumed a significant proportion of a development’s budget and schedule. This situation created a drive to reduce the amount of construction required offshore and subsequently the lifting capacity of Heavy Lift Vessels increased significantly. This resulted in larger and heavier topsides structures being fabricated onshore which in some cases resulted in the Deck Building increasingly being used to fabricate Module and Topsides sections which were finally assembled outside near the Quayside.
In addition to Topsides structures being assembled, the Deck Building was used for the fabrication of a variety of Jacket and Subsea components. Whilst the Deck Building offered a considerable covered area within which to operate, there was one geographical feature which sometimes gave the work force a feeling of being outdoors. With the orientation of the open side of the building facing North East and given the right conditions, the occasional snow flurries could blow through the building