Oil boom: Dramatic footage shows 12,000 ton North Sea behemoth reduced to a pile of twisted metal in seconds
It was a workhorse in the North Sea oil fields for decades, first as an oil rig and then as a production facility.
But as these dramatic images show, it took only seconds to reduce the Northern Producer to a pile of scrap metal.
Footage shows the semi-submersible oil rig sitting in a dry dock in north-west Scotland as demolition charges ignite in its legs.
Demolition charges ignite in the legs of the oil rig while it is in the huge dry dock on Loch Kishorn
Smoke and decades of dust and dirt erupt from the structure
The oil rig disappears in a cloud of dust as it collapses
After years of serving the oil industry in the North Sea, the oil rig has been reduced to a pile of scrap metal
The 12,000-ton structure is then shrouded in clouds of dust, which eventually clear and reveal a huge pile of twisted metal.
Northern Producer was used in the Dons oil fields, approximately 100 miles northeast of Shetland.
But the fields have reached the end of their lifespan and are being decommissioned. So three years ago the structure was taken to the Kishorn Port dry dock facility in Strathcarron, Ross-shire and blown up last week.
Work is now underway to recycle and reuse several parts of the oil rig, which was built in Norway in 1976 at the height of the North Sea oil boom.
The yard said it believed its dry dock, built in the 1970s to build platforms in the North Sea, was the first to be used to demolish a platform in this way.
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