Piper Alpha Oil & Gas Platform Explosion: A Case Study in Risk Management

Piper Alpha Oil & Gas Platform Explosion

Q. prepare a short paper, to explain the key Risk management features of the safety case
regime in reducing the risk of major accidents and describe how its application may have
prevented the Piper Alpha Oil & Gas Platform Explosion in 1988.
In this project we will discuss the various types of risk management features and the different
ways to reduce the major accident and its benefits. In the case of Piper Alpha Oil & Gas Platform
Explosion in 1988 how can we use different scheme of risk management system for the getting
knowledge regarding the explosion and managing the overall project of oil and gas.
Piper Alpha was an oil and gas production platform situated at the North Sea under Scotland
(Angulo etal 2016). This plant is around 190 km (120 miles) in the direction of north east of
Aberdeen, in Scotland. And this oil and gas plant was operated by Occidental petroleum Limited
(Caledonia). Piper Alpha was opened in the year of 1976 for the production of oil only but after
few years they are converted to gas production plant. on 6th July 1988 an explosion was taken
place as a result the oil and gas fires complete destroyed the piper alpha production plant. In that
accident 167 of workers and peoples were died including 2 crewmen of the rescue vessel and 61
of the workers were survived and escaped. In that explosion 30 bodies were never recovered in
that accident. The total cost of the property damage during this explosion was around 1.7 billion
euro which is around $3.4 billion (Manuj et al., 2015). And that was the most costly manmade
catastrophes all around the world. During the time of distraction around 10 % of the North Sea
gas and oil were acquired by the platform all the gas and oils were lost as a result the disaster lost
in life of living and oil industry impact (Konschnik et al., 2018).
In 1972 four companies which is later transformed into OPCAL joint venture get the license of
oil exploration. And they got a piped oilfield location at 58degree 28 min north 15 degree east
direction in the year of 1973 (Udie et al., 2018). And then they constructed the platform and
pipeline in the sure sort structure. After a log construction of the platform and pipeline for three
years the production of oil starts in 1976 initially it is about 250,000 barrels of oil were produced
on the daily basis which is around 40,000 m3, and letter the production were increased to 300,000
barrels on the daily production which is around 48,000 m3. In 1980 the new gas production
module was installed as a result the production of oil is decreased to 125,000 barrels by the year
of 1988. In the Orkney Island to receive the oil from the piper, Claymore and Tartan oilfield each
with its own platform were building by the OPCAL in the name of Flotta oil terminal. This is

around 206 km from the piper alpha to Flotta. To connect this pipeline a 30 inch around 76 cm of
diameter of pipe is connected. The platform of the piper alpha was constructed by McDeromott
engineering at Ardersier and UIE at Cherbourg. For the safety reasons the platform is designed in
that way to keep the most dangerous operation area were distant from the personal area. Piper
alpha was situated on the piper oilfield which is around 193 km from the northern direction of
the Aberdeen, and its platform is around 475 feet from the sea water level. Because of the
conversion of oil to gas brakes the safety concerns as a result sensitive areas and personal are are
comes together. The gas consolation chamber is bringing near to the control room which is main
reason for the accident.
In the late 1970s to get good production of the gas and oil the government of U.K was carried out
the new export requirements after the work had been completed. Initially piper alpha was
initially made for the production of the oil but later it will also start producing oil to gas that’s
why it is a 2 mode operating. In the end of 1980 it is start converting oil to gas process. In the
year of 1980 the maintainer and major construction and the up gradation of the platforms leads
some distraction to the platforms (Khan et al., 2017).
12:00 noon the two condensate pumps named as A and B, for the transport of thee coast they are
being displaced the platform for the condensed. On the 6th July in the morning time pressure
safety valve of pump A was removed because of the routine maintenance. and till the 6 PM of
the evening the maintenance was not fully completed as a result the disc remain opened and the
duty engineer were filled in a permit that at any cost the pump A will not switched on because
the dices was hand tightened only (Swuste et al., 2017).
In 6:00 pm the day shift staffs work were finished and the night shifts starts and the piper alpha
were started by 62 of the mans. And new staffs of night shift started their work and the engineers
neglected to inform the condition and situation of the Pump A. they just go to the control center
and left. And the pervious permit of work was cont completed. And the new permit for the
general output overhead on pump A.
In 7:00 pm as many other offshore platform piper alpha was filled with automatic fire fighting
system using both diesel and electric pumps. The diesel pump were created to suck the large