According to secret records that were recently made public, UK feared that there might be terror attacks on oil rigs in the North Sea in the 1970s. UK defense chiefs even considered turning the sea into a minefield.
The declassified files showed that senior military figures believed Palestinian groups had “actively considered” targeting a western oil and gas installation. These concerns were raised at the time the Black September Organization kidnapped and killed 11 Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympic Games. There were also warnings that the Soviet Union is fully capable of carrying out an attack on the oil rigs in the North Sea.
The plans how to protect the rigs from terror attacks were drawn in the middle of the 1970s and the files are kept at the National archives in London.
Other secret files from 1981 revealed that UK Government believed that Norway would not be able to deal with a terrorist attack in the oil fields in the North Sea. According to British officials the Norwegians were “far from ready” to deal with a major incident offshore.
