Rosebank: Life on the oil field at the centre of a political storm

It’s also a job that calls for steady legs and a strong stomach.

Unlike the fixed Jackdaw platform, this installation – 80 miles north west of Shetland – is a large ship, a floating production, storage and offloading vessel (FPSO) named the Petrojarl Rosebank.

It’s been chartered by the field’s owners from Aberdeen-based Altera and, during my 48 hours on board, it was constantly but gently rolling on the North Atlantic swell.

Those conditions may be misleading.

With the understatement typical of an Orkney islander, lead mechanical technician Ewan Leonard told me the winter weather could be “a bit of a challenge.”

“Last week we had a 30m heave coming through,” he said, referring to the swell, “so we’ll probably suffer more of that as the winter goes on.”

Altera CEO Chris Brett told me that in the industry the environment west of Shetland is considered “as harsh as you get anywhere in the world.”

Whatever your view on that industry, the sheer scale of what humans have achieved in such conditions is impressive.