North Star

AUTHOR'S NOTE

North Star is a natural progression from earlier travels in search of background. I was in Canada in 1950 when the discovery well at Leduc was flaring and the first rigs were moving into the Redwater field. The result was Campbell's Kingdom. Six years later I was ashore in Oman with the first oil expedition on the Arabian coast of the Indian Ocean and wrote The Doomed Oasis. It was inevitable, therefore, that I should become fascinated by the search for oil off the coasts of my native land.

I started writing North Star in the autumn of 1972 with the intention of finishing it late in 1974, but world events caught up with me — the Arab-Israeli war, the oil embargoes, the shortages, the price rises. And in Britain a miners' strike and the three-day working week, the unions bringing government down, a general election. Suddenly North Sea oil was on everybody's lips, the one bright spot in the prevailing gloom. In these circumstances, I felt it essential to bring the book forward, and if any errors have crept in, then this is the reason.

However, I have had a great deal of technical help. Primarily I am indebted to Shell, and to Sir David Barran, who made me free of their Staflo rig on a long tow down from the Brent to the Auk. Later Tammo Appelman, their seabed expert, cleared up many questions of technical detail. Tricentrol's chief exploration manager, A. F. Fox, was most helpful in pinpointing the location for North Star's drilling west of Shetland, and I am also indebted to him for a final check on drilling technicalities. And in the north-west of Scot-land Sir Reginald Rootes introduced me to the little Port of the North opposite his house.

North Star was the name of my rig, and also my title, right from the first page of writing, and here I ran into difficulty. At a late stage I discovered that there was, in fact, a real rig called North Star. It was of the jack-up type drilling in the Persian Gulf and owned by the Offshore Company of Houston, Texas. However, their President, W. H. Moore, raised no objection when I wrote to him of my problem, and I would like to express my appreciation of his understanding and emphasize that there is no connection between "the semi-submersible North Star rig of my story and his jack-up.

Finally, I would like to thank Charles Forret for his help over details of speech in Shetland, Mike Burton of Newington Trawlers and the Lowestoft Fishing Vessel Owners' Association and Captain Meen for clarification of equipment and layout of the Duchess Jim Mitchell of the Hull Daily Mail for court background, and many others who have been of assistance to me during the very concentrated period of writing this book, including all those on Staflo who gave me of their time and knowledge.