This is the first in a series of short articles about the OSO or, to give it its full title, the Offshore Supplies Office. It was an organisation that, at one time, had a fearsome reputation as it strove to ensure that British industry secured a fair share of the huge opportunities generated by the advent of North Sea oil.
I have recently completed a study of new market opportunities for the former oil fabrication yard at Nigg, in Easter Ross. Brown and Root stopped building offshore platforms and modules there in 2003, since when the facilities have only been used by other companies on a very small scale.
