Remembering Piper Alpha: 35th Anniversary of Offshore Oil Disaster that Claimed 167 Lives

OE Staff Jul 6, 2023

Credit: RMT

Thirty-five years ago, on July 6, 1988, one of the offshore oil and gas industry's worst-ever disasters struck - the explosion of the Piper Alpha platform in the UK North Sea. To this day, the disaster is the worst ever in the industry by the number of lives lost; 167 people died.

Piper Alpha was a large North Sea oil platform that started production in 1976. A large fixed platform, Piper Alpha, was situated on the Piper oilfield, approximately 120 miles (193 kilometers) northeast of Aberdeen in 474 feet (144 meters) of water.

It produced oil from 24 wells, and in its early life, it also produced gas from two wells.

It was connected by an oil pipeline to Flotta and by gas pipelines to two other installations. In 1988, Piper Alpha was operated by Occidental Petroleum.

On 6 July 1988, a massive leakage of gas condensate on Piper Alpha was ignited, causing an explosion that led to large oil fires.

The heat ruptured the riser of a gas pipeline from another installation. This produced a further massive explosion and fireball that engulfed the Piper Alpha platform. All this took just 22 minutes.

The scale of the disaster was enormous. One hundred sixty-seven people died, 62 survived, and 30 bodies were never recovered.

Remembering Piper Alpha - 35 years on

Piper Alpha Memorial

Commemorating the 167 men killed on the 6th July 1988 on the oil platform.
Designed and sculptured by Sue Jane Taylor and unveiled by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother on the 6th July 1991.

The names of the 167 people who tragically lost their lives in the Piper Alpha disaster will be read aloud at a special memorial service in Aberdeen Thursday to mark the 35th anniversary of the tragedy.

This year’s service of remembrance will be held in the North Sea Memorial Rose Gardens at the Piper Alpha Memorial, at Hazlehead Park in Aberdeen at 1 pm local time.

The service will be conducted by Gordon Craig (Oil Chaplain), alongside Calum McIlroy, an accomplished musician providing music composed especially for the service. There will also be a traditional piper.

The service will take the following format: introduction, prayer, and Act of Remembrance, reading of the names of 167 lives lost, a minute’s silence, laying of wreaths/flowers, and commemoration, followed by refreshments to be served at the Park Cafe.

Mark Wilson, OEUK’s HSE and Operations Director, said: “As we mark the 35th anniversary of the tragic Piper Alpha on July 6th, our thoughts remain with the families, friends, and colleagues who lost loved ones and we will never forget those who did not return home.

"This anniversary serves as a stark reminder that we can never be complacent about ensuring safe operations in our industry. The safety of our people has to be at the heart of all that we do, day in and day out, 24/7, because we all need to be able to go home safely.

"With each year that passes, safety remains very important and, working closely with Step Change in Safety, we will continue to strive to do our utmost to protect the workforce from harm both offshore and onshore.”

UK North Sea oil producer Harbour Energy's Executive Vice President-elect for the North Sea Scott Barr said this week: "The lessons from the disaster are etched on the minds of most of my generation,” But, he said, 35 years on, relatively few offshore workers have personal memories of the tragedy.

"Let’s commit ourselves to sharing the stories, the learnings and the legacy of Piper Alpha … with the next generation,” he said. “Let’s ensure when this industry meets in 5, 10 or 15 years’ time to remember its worst day, we do so with the same passion [for keeping everyone safe], and more importantly, without any more major accidents to remember.”

Harbour Energy will mark the anniversary by observing a minute of silence across all our UK sites, in respect to those who lost their lives.

Another UK North Sea oil firm, Spirit Energy, posted the following: "Today marks the 35th Anniversary of the night that changed the oil and gas industry forever. As we remember Piper Alpha, and the 167 souls that it took, Step Change in Safety is calling on our industry to take the Pledge for Piper.

Spirit Energy has taken this pledge and encouraged our workforce to take 22 minutes out of their day to watch the film; Remembering Piper: The Night that Changed our World. It took 22 minutes for this industry disaster to unfold, and within two hours the Piper Alpha asset went from being one of the world’s largest oil producers to the burning wreckage and left just 61 survivors."

Spirit Energy, Head of HSE&S, Steve Grant, commented: “A growing number of workers in our industry were not born when the Piper Alpha disaster occurred. For example, 20% of the UK Spirit Energy workforce are under the age of 35. One way to maintain a healthy level of chronic unease is to ensure we do not forget the past and promote the lessons from it.”

Root Cause, Lord Cullen Recommendations, Step Change in Safety

In a press release marking the 35th anniversary of the Piper Alpha disaster, The National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers (RMT), shares a more detailed course of events that led to the disaster, and the events that followed. Offshore Engineer republishes the press release in full:

"The root cause of the Piper Alpha disaster was primarily an inappropriate permit to work system. On the night of the tragedy, workers reinstated and injected condensate fluid into a pump, not knowing a safety valve on another deck had been removed and replaced by a non-leak-proof disk.

The high-pressure condensate flow leaked from the disk and soon ignited. The first explosion broke through a fire wall that was not fit to stand up to explosive events.

This led to secondary explosions in the module neighboring the location of the initial leak.

Rubber matting used by divers on a lower deck accumulated a pool fire which ultimately resulted in the devastating and irreversible damage of the fire ball that engulfed the platform at 22:20 on 6th July, 1988. From this point onward, the fate of the oil rig was sealed.

In September 1997, Step Change in Safety was launched by the UK offshore industry. Two years later, trade unions reported Shell for failure to comply with more than 60 of Lord Cullen’s 106 Piper Alpha recommendations.

From a safety-focused conference some 30 years later, the investigative lead, the Rt Hon Lord Cullen, remarked:

“It’s not much good having an investigation if it doesn’t lead to lasting improvements in safety ... results being embedded in the control of risk and reflected in the way in which work is tackled and done.”

RMT General Secretary Mick Lynch said: “Piper Alpha remains a symbol of the threat poorly regulated, profit-hungry operators can pose to the lives of offshore workers and their families.

"The loss of those 167 workers resulted in much needed improvements to the laws governing health and safety offshore. One change was the legal requirement to establish safety representatives and safety committees elected by offshore workers. Today as we mark the 35th anniversary of the Piper Alpha tragedy, RMT again calls for a review of the effectiveness of the safety regime across the entire offshore and maritime sector.

"Booming profits and dividends for multinationals, the climate and cost of living crises, energy security, growing demands on a finite workforce, the safety maintenance backlog and the failure to deliver Just Transition policies all demand a robust and active safety representative structure to drive continuous improvement.

"Workers’ voices must be heard, and the legacy of the 167 Piper Alpha victims must be the safety of all those working across the North Sea today.

“We ask that offshore employers allow all workers to take a moment today to remember the 167 offshore workers and the devastating effect that this disaster had on their families and communities, especially in northeast Scotland. The men of Piper are gone but will never be forgotten.

“This year, the anniversary of Piper Alpha again takes place during the UK Government’s Maritime Safety Week. We once more call on Ministers to respect the memory of Piper Alpha’s victims by delivering the offshore safety culture of continuous improvement recommended in the Cullen Report into the disaster.”

The short film below was produced for Step Change by The Art Department and features audio from the BBC Radio 3 drama 'Piper Alpha - the Human Price of Oil' by Stephen Phelps.