Platform WE was a small four leg unmanned platform located in BP's West Sole gas field. The jacket carried a deck comprising a helideck with two cellar decks beneath for production equipment and supported a single 30 in. (760 mm) conductor tube together with an 8 in (200 mm) riser. Figure 1 gives a general view of the structure in service. The general arrangement of the jacket is shown in Fig. 2. The jacket was sited in a mean water depth of about 25 m and had plan dimensions of 32 ft (9.8 m) square at the top, tapering to 57 ft (17.4 m) square at seabed level. It was supported on four 30 in. diameter piles driven through the legs into hard boulder clay and welded to the top of the jacket. The annular space between shear capabilities at the nodes.
The platform was originally designed to support the West Sole discovery well drilled by the ill-fated jack-up 'Sea Gem'. When 'Sea Gem' collapsed in December 1965, the well was lost and the then fabricated platform was stored in Holland. Subsequently the jacket was modified and used at the WE location in July 1966. The platform was designed according to the best standards applicable at the time. These owed much to Gulf of Mexico experience with some necessarily limited local environmental data.
In 1973 a major structural reappraisal of all the West Sole platforms took place and as a result some strengthening of the platforms was carried out. In the case of WE it was estimated that its fatigue life could be of the order of a further 5 years. No strengthening of the platform was undertaken, however, as it was economically difficult to justify.
