Project: Brae "A"

Jacket & Piles

Marathon Brae A Jacket & Piles

Oil and gas reserves were first discovered in the Brae Field in 1974. Following the design development and tendering phase of the Brae Alpha project facilities, the Ardersier Yard was awarded a contract in June 1980 to build an eight leg Jacket to support the Alpha platform’s drilling and production facilities. The contract scope also included the Foundation Piles and Flotation Tanks.  

Brae A was the first large Jacket to be fabricated with two Lampson Transi-lift cranes at the Yards disposal, proving to be valuable assets in performing many of the heavy lifts such as the “bottles” which weighed 1,300 Tonnes each. A sense of the size of a typical deep water Jacket structure is given in the image captioned “Second Side Flotation Tank” being installed with the “toy like” double deck bus shown on the lower right of the picture.  

Following the loadout of the Jacket in June 1982 and the subsequent offshore installation programme the Brae A platform commenced production in July 1983. It is planned to remove the platform in the period between 2025 and 2028.