Safety fears 30 years on from oil rig disaster
Memorial service to mark 30th anniversary of Piper Alpha disaster aboard North Sea platform
OIL and gas industry bosses have been urged to maintain the focus on safety 30 years after the Piper Alpha disaster, in which 167 people died in an oil rig explosion.
One senior union figure told how he feared the safety drive of recent years had stalled as the global price of oil was being squeezed.
Jake Molloy, regional organiser of the RMT union, said: “I thought after 25 years [since Piper Alpha] we were making great inroads into the objective of continuous improvement.
“Regrettably, $40 (£30) barrels came along [in 2016] and I think that’s had a detrimental impact as the drive to reduce costs and improve efficiency has had a detrimental effect on the attitudes and behaviours of workers who have lost that impetus.
“The consensus now seems to be that safety is at a cost and the whole drive has stopped and has been sacrificed to cost.”
Mr Molloy said all sections of the industry should support each other in promoting the safety agenda, but added: “Regrettably we see with too many operators that there’s a reluctance to do that.”
A public inquiry into the Piper Alpha tragedy, chaired by Lord Cullen, produced 106 recommendations for the sector. All of them were accepted by industry and the findings led to the health and safety regime that the industry has today.
Oil & Gas UK chief executive Deirdre Michie said it was important that all parties continued to talk openly about safety concerns and worked together to address them.
The explosion on the North Sea rig on July 6, 1988 turned the rig into a fireball.
THE 30TH anniversary of the Piper Alpha disaster falls later this week, with those who perished in the tragedy to be remembered at a special memorial service.
The evening event will take place in Aberdeen on Friday at the Piper Alpha Memorial Garden in Hazlehead Park. The names of all 167 men who lost their lives on July 6, 1988 will be read out during the ceremony to be attended by their relatives, friends and representatives from the oil and gas sector.
The vast human tragedy of that day sent shockwaves around the world and forced the industry to take a painstaking look at its practices.
On that night, there were more than 220 men on board Piper Alpha, with most in the accommodation section and more than 60 working on the night shift.
Shortly before 10pm, there was a gas leak on the North Sea platform.
A series of explosions followed and, minutes later, it was engulfed in a fireball.
By the time the rescue helicopters arrived, flames were reaching 300ft and could be seen from 70 miles away.
The smoke and fire made evacuation by helicopter or lifeboat impossible, and many people gathered in the accommodation area. Remaining there meant certain death.
With the platform ablaze and exploding, some men jumped off from 175ft above the North Sea.
Others plunged from lower levels or clambered down ropes and hoses before plummeting into the water.
There were only 62 survivors that night in what remains the world’s worst offshore disaster.
An inquiry led by Lord Cullen opened in Aberdeen in January 1989, ended in February the following year, and published its report of several hundred pages nine months after that.
It led to North Sea safety being shifted from the Department of Energy to the Health and Safety Executive, and meant that automatic shut-down valves were made mandatory on rigs to starve a fire of fuel.
Three decades on from the tragedy, the impact of his 106 recommendations is still felt right across the sector.
In early June, the retired judge gave a keynote speech on “signs of danger” at Oil & Gas UK’s safety conference.
He told the audience in Aberdeen: “When I read reports about major accidents, I’m struck by how frequently they had been preceded by signs indicating danger.
“But those signs were not recognised or, at any rate, effectively acted on to prevent the accidents in question, or at any rate to limit their extent.”
Speaking ahead of the anniversary, Deirdre Michie, the chief executive of Oil & Gas UK, said: “Three decades on and there is a new generation of offshore workers who were not even born at the time of Piper Alpha and yet their working lives today continue to be guided by what happened that terrible night.
“On Friday, when we come together for an act of remembrance in the Piper Alpha Memorial Garden, we do so to show the families, friends and colleagues of those who died that they are in our thoughts.”
Accidents were frequently preceded by danger signs. Lord Cullen, who led the inquiry into the disaster.